Oxford’s Air Med has acquired a Piper Cheyenne XL, which the company hopes will be fully operational by the beginning of next year. The latest fleet addition brings the company’s tally of aircraft to 11, including four Senecas, four Navajo Chieftains and additional cargo aircraft.

The Cheyenne will be used for charter and very light freight work but will mostly undertake medevac missions. It is fitted with a Lifeport system, containing oxygen, suction, defibrillators and IT equipment.

Said chief pilot Rod Paris: “It’s basically a Piper Chieftain fuselage with PT6 gas turbine engines and a pressurised cabin. It’s quite fast – about 255 knots – with a good range of 1,000 nm with IFR reserves.”

The company believes that it is the ideal aircraft for medevac work and, as it was relatively inexpensive to acquire, Air Med aims to offer competitive rates. “This is important because the air ambulance market is very competitive,” said Paris. “People have the impression that because it’s ambulance work there is no expense spared but, in fact, it’s a very price-competitive market.”

Although Paris completed his training for the aircraft in France, most of Air Med’s pilots do not speak French, so the company is hoping to set up its own training scheme for the Cheyenne at Oxford. “We

are considering setting up our own Type Rating Training Organisation for training on the Cheyenne because there are no such TRTOs in the UK,” he said.

The company aims to link up with a French TRTO and help with the English side of the training, or set one up itself at Oxford.

Air Med anticipates that it will add a second Cheyenne to its fleet next year, in order to ensure availability of the aircraft type if the Cheyenne suffers any down time.

“As far as we have seen, the Cheyenne costs more to run per hour than the piston fleet, but we’re hoping to get quite close to the cost of the pistons in price per nautical mile,” said Paris. “It’s faster, which gives us a huge advantage, as we cover areas like Spain, for example, and these missions can be two day jobs for us because of duty hours, so we’re hoping that we can complete these missions in single duty spells.”

The aircraft has a 10-seat configuration (including crew), though it is normally configured for five passengers. The company is hoping to configure the multi-role aircraft for two stretchers or one intensive care patient.