STARS Air Ambulance Takeoff

Catering to the needs of the most urgent patients in Alberta, they are sometimes airlifted from a nearby community to the PLC by the Shock Trauma Air Rescue Society (STARS) ambulance service.

In 1989, a landing pad was still under construction on the roof of the most recent addition to the Peter Lougheed Centre (PLC) of the Alberta Health Services (AHS) in northeast Calgary and a temporary area was set a ground level to receive the helicopter.

Over the years, the STARS fleet has grown from a single helicopter to seven Eurocopter BK117s, serving eastern British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba from bases in Calgary, Edmonton, Grande Prairie, Regina, Saskatoon and Winnipeg. Each helicopter covers a 250 km radius and can hold one critical patient or two non-critical. The operating range can be extended further than 250 km when refueling is available. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_Tr....
STARS have since purchased a more modern AgustaWestland AW139 helicopter, thanks to corporate donations and a lottery.

In this video, we see one of the Eurocopter BK-117 about to take off from the temporary landing pad behind the hospital on 26 Ave NE. The area has since been re-landscaped.

In the interest of not watching the blades whirring for minutes on end while the engines are warming up and instruments checked, the video was edited to show only the most important parts.

View the technical specs for the BK-117 at: http://www.stars.ca/what-we-do/helico...