DOWN UNDER FLYING DOCTORS PAY P&WC A VISIT UNDER PT6A POWER

A team from Royal Flying Doctors Service (RFDS) stopped to pay P&WC a visit the second week of August as they ferried a new King Air B350 from Wichita, Kansas, to their home base in Brisbane, Australia.

RFDS was created the same year as P&WC, 1928, to provide air medical services to remote and rural regions of Australia. Today, RFDS is the fourth largest airline in Australia and flies an average of 26 million kilometers a year providing a variety of medical services including emergency transport. It provides these services over 7.13 million square kilometers. Virtually the entire RFDS fleet is powered by PT6A engines – representing more than 100 of our engines.

The rugged and reliable PT6A engine is ideally suited for RFDS missions as they often fly long stretches in harsh environments and land on rough, dirt airstrips with no modern conveniences.

The three-man team from RFDS picked up the King Air B350 (powered by the PT6A-60A) at the OEM’s facility in Wichita and made their first stop at St. Hubert Airport where the aircraft overnighted. At Plant 1 in Longueuil, the RFDS employees were given a tour of our manufacturing facility.

The next morning the trio was on their way again, ferrying the new aircraft back to Brisbane.