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Falck Buys Option For First Jump Aero JA1 Pulse First-Responder Single-Seat eVTOL

Fal­ck, a glob­al health­care and emer­gency ser­vices com­pa­ny, has bought an option for the first com­mer­cial deliv­ery of Cal­i­for­nia-based Jump Aero’s eVTOL JA1 Pulse air­craft, designed to help pilot-para­medics rapid­ly fly to a heart attack or stroke vic­tim, reports a press release.

“eVTOL air­craft tech­nol­o­gy has the poten­tial to trans­form the way health­care and emer­gency ser­vices are deliv­ered, by lever­ag­ing the future capa­bil­i­ties of these advanced aer­i­al vehi­cles,” explains the release. “Fal­ck aims to improve response times, reach remote and hard-to-access areas and pro­vide crit­i­cal med­ical assis­tance in a more sus­tain­able and time­ly man­ner. This is ben­e­fi­cial in sit­u­a­tions where time is crit­i­cal, such as nat­ur­al dis­as­ters or med­ical emer­gen­cies.”

Falck’s pur­chase of the first JA1 Pulse air­craft along­side its col­lab­o­ra­tion with Jump Aero is part of the health­care company’s var­i­ous part­ner­ships that aims to rev­o­lu­tionise health­care and emer­gency ser­vices via har­ness­ing the poten­tial of AAM.

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Jakob Riis, CEO and Pres­i­dent of Fal­ck, com­ment­ed, “For years, we have active­ly been explor­ing the poten­tial and inte­gra­tion of sus­tain­able health drones and now, with the intro­duc­tion of trans­port­ing health pro­fes­sion­als via air­craft, we will be tak­ing anoth­er step. This part­ner­ship focus­es on our abil­i­ty to pro­vide life-sav­ing inter­ven­tions, but it also con­tributes to reduc­ing the car­bon foot­print in our oper­a­tions.”

Carl Diet­rich, Founder & Pres­i­dent of Jump Aero, added, “Togeth­er, we will push the bound­aries of what is pos­si­ble in the indus­try, lever­ag­ing eVTOL air­craft tech­nol­o­gy to enhance the speed, effi­cien­cy and effec­tive­ness of health­care and emer­gency response oper­a­tions.”

The release con­cludes, “The JA1 Pulse is designed to help med­ical pro­fes­sion­als arrive at the scene of a rur­al emer­gency as fast as pos­si­ble with crit­i­cal life-sav­ing equip­ment. It will be capa­ble of dash speeds of 250 knots mak­ing it the fastest form of sus­tain­able per­son­al trans­porta­tion with the goal of pro­vid­ing the largest cov­er­age radius with­in the crit­i­cal 8‑minute emer­gency response win­dow.”

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(Edit­ed from www.newatlas.com)

The air­craft has what’s known as a ‘tail-sit­ter’ design. This means that when on the ground, it sits with the nose and eight elec­tric-dri­ve pro­pellers fac­ing upward. The craft takes off ver­ti­cal­ly like a heli­copter, but tips side­ways in to a hor­i­zon­tal ori­en­ta­tion once cruis­ing alti­tude has been achieved. Struc­tur­al ele­ments between the props then serve as biplane wings, allow­ing for faster, more effi­cient for­ward flight than would be pos­si­ble with a heli­copter or mul­ti-rotor type design.

The sin­gle occu­pant (who is both the pilot and first respon­der) is in a stand­ing posi­tion when the Pulse is on the ground, then in a prone posi­tion once the air­craft tips for­ward. In both posi­tions, the para­medic can look for­ward and down through win­dows in the vehi­cle’s nose and bel­ly.

Sim­pli­fied flight con­trols mean that exten­sive train­ing isn’t nec­es­sary, plus there is report­ed­ly no sin­gle point on the eVTOL that will cause cat­a­stroph­ic fail­ure should it mal­func­tion. If there are any dif­fi­cul­ties, a bal­lis­tic air­frame para­chute can be deployed.

The air­craft poten­tial­ly has a top speed of 288 mph, a max­i­mum pilot/equipment weight capac­i­ty of 331 lbs and can be deployed in less than 60 sec­onds. The craft has the abil­i­ty of reach­ing any loca­tion with­in a 31 mile radius in under eight min­utes.

The Pulse is able to land on slopes of up to 10 degrees and be trans­port­ed on the back of a flatbed truck with­out any dis­as­sem­bly. Each of its eight motors are pow­ered by a sep­a­rate 11-kWh bat­tery, all of which can be charged simul­ta­ne­ous­ly via a sin­gle port.

As the air­craft can’t car­ry patients, it isn’t intend­ed to replace tra­di­tion­al ambu­lances. Instead, when an emer­gency ser­vices oper­a­tor receives a call in which Advanced Life Sup­port is nec­es­sary, they will dis­patch both an ambu­lance and a Pulse.

The air­craft should be able to reach the patien­t’s urban or rur­al loca­tion much faster, at which point the pilot para­medic will set to work with onboard life­sav­ing equip­ment such as a heart mon­i­tor, auto­mat­ed CPR machine and oxy­gen sup­ply. When the ambu­lance arrives its crew will take over, free­ing up the Pulse for oth­er calls.

Accord­ing to Jump Aero, Fal­ck is the first com­mer­cial client to place an order for the air­craft. Although no details on the order have been shared at this point, Den­mark-based Fal­ck is the self-described “world’s lead­ing inter­na­tion­al ambu­lance oper­a­tor,” pro­vid­ing ser­vices to clients in 15 coun­tries. It is unclear when the JA1 Pulse may com­plete full cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for para­medic use.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://jumpaero.com/

https://www.falck.com/services/healthcare/

(Images: Jump Aero)

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