ADAC Luftrettung collaborates with Volocopter on emergency medical services eVTOL

ADAC Luftret­tung and Volo­copter yes­ter­day entered into a col­lab­o­ra­tion part­ner­ship at the Paris Air Show to cus­tomise eVTOLs for res­cue ser­vices, to pur­chase two VoloC­i­ty air­craft and to secure 150 addi­tion­al units.

The two VoloC­i­ty air­craft will start research oper­a­tions in late 2024 to pro­vide ADAC Luftrettung’s Emer­gency Med­ical Ser­vices (EMS) as sup­ple­men­tary air­craft in Ger­many. Since 2018, non­prof­it ADAC Luftret­tung and Volo­copter have par­tic­i­pat­ed in a joint eVTOL fea­si­bil­i­ty study in EMS and res­cue oper­a­tions, with the Insti­tut für Not­fallmedi­zin und Medi­z­in­man­age­ment (INM, Insti­tute for Emer­gency Med­i­cine and Med­ical Man­age­ment) at Lud­wig Max­i­m­il­ian Uni­ver­si­ty in Munich.

The study com­put­er-sim­u­lat­ed aeromed­ical mis­sions in two regions in Ger­many, and the­o­ret­i­cal­ly proved that the intro­duc­tion of eVTOLs in life-sav­ing sit­u­a­tions would add a sig­nif­i­cant tac­ti­cal advan­tage. A pilot and an emer­gency physi­cian will be dis­patched to inci­dent loca­tions to sup­ple­ment but not to replace res­cue heli­copters.

Frédéric Brud­er, Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer of ADAC Luftret­tung, explained: “With longer range, faster oper­a­tional speeds and sig­nif­i­cant­ly more pay­load of the next gen­er­a­tion eVTOLs, we can ful­fill our statu­to­ry mis­sion to fur­ther devel­op the res­cue ser­vice from the air.”

Dirk Hoke, Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer of Volo­copter, said: “ADAC Luftret­tung is the lead­ing Euro­pean res­cue ser­vice with high­ly trained pilots and suc­cess­ful mis­sions. We are now con­cen­trat­ing on start­ing EMS oper­a­tions in Ger­many in 2024.”

The ADAC Luftret­tung fea­si­bil­i­ty study has been met with great inter­est by the Assis­tance Publique – Hôpi­taux de Paris, as they have joined forces with Groupe ADP to explore the deploy­ment of ADAC Luftret­tung’s con­cept for mul­ti­copter oper­a­tions in EMS also in the Paris region.

Oper­at­ing more than 50 res­cue heli­copters out of 37 bases, the char­i­ta­ble ADAC air res­cue ser­vice heli­copters are part of the Ger­man EMS sys­tem. The faster patients are tak­en to hos­pi­tal for treat­ment or attend­ed to by an emer­gency doc­tor on site, the bet­ter are their chances of sur­vival or con­va­les­cence.

In Jan­u­ary, Volo­copter chief engi­neer Sebas­t­ian Mores took the reins as its new chief tech­nol­o­gy offi­cer (CTO). He retains his pre­vi­ous role in ensur­ing that the VoloC­i­ty, Volo­Drone, and VoloRe­gion are ready in time for their tar­get launch­es, with the VoloC­i­ty sched­uled for release at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Volo­copter hires chief engi­neer Sebas­t­ian Mores as CTO