Orbis Flying Eye Hospital

These guys are great, awesome that they have the funding to stay afloat!
 
Always loved that airplane - glad to see it put to such good use!
 
When I worked overseas, had the privilege to see this service in action first hand as one of our bases was located on the same ramp. It was a very interesting experience to see how it all comes together.
 
Glad they got it up and flying again. That old girl spent probably a month or more broken down in DAY after coming in for the air show last summer.
 
Todd82 said:
Glad they got it up and flying again. That old girl spent probably a month or more broken down in DAY after coming in for the air show last summer.
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A Part 121 friend told me that as a new-hire F/E for Piedmont, he flew for a captain who had flown this airplane (then N101TV) for Air Florida. In 1981 he had an uncontained failure in the #3 engine on takeoff roll, just below V1. It threw a lot of shrapnel into the wing and damaged some systems, including the leading edge slat actuators. He rejected the takeoff and stopped safely.

Orbis' prior DC-10-10 was the second DC-10 built, the one I watched being delivered to AA at the big coming-out party at LGB in 1971. That one is parked at the Pima Air Museum in Tucson now.
 
I sometimes wonder whether their mission would be better served if they put their ORs into a bunch of 40ft sea containers .The plane doesn't actually fly all that much and it just adds a lot of complications to the logistics. No matter where in the world you go these days, there is going to be equipment t to handle sea containers.Also allows you to park the teaching OR where the patients are.
 
Tantalum said:
These guys are great, awesome that they have the funding to stay afloat!
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Between a certain Microsoft billionaire, and big Fedex support, they will be doing this for a long time. Both the DC-10 and the MD-11 were in Indy for several months at the fedex maint base for transfer and conversion. I think AMR had a hand in it, as well.
 
Very cool. Aren’t there also other organizations flying large airplanes as flying hospitals? I seem to recall a L1011 doing it.
 
Cam Bender said:
Very cool. Aren’t there also other organizations flying large airplanes as flying hospitals? I seem to recall a L1011 doing it.
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Could be, I don't really know. The MD-10 is relatively new for Orbis. They were flying a DC-10 and when that needed replacement, FedEx donated the MD-10.
 
Lachlan said:
Is “FedEx Express” the fastest version of fast delivery, or just useless redundancy?
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Lol. It's actually not redundant, although it does sound funny.

Obviously the company used to be called "Federal Express" and eventually people colloquially started calling it FedEx. Well, in 2000, Federal Express changed the corporation's name to just FedEx and rebranded its subsidiaries with the FedEx name. So, what was the original overnight express delivery company "Federal Express" became "FedEx Express," the trucking subsidiary (RPS) became FedEx Ground, Kinkos became FedEx Office, and so on. So even though a lot of people think that "FedEx Express" means "Federal Express Express" it really doesn't.
 
Pilawt said:
...Orbis' prior DC-10-10 was the second DC-10 built, the one I watched being delivered to AA at the big coming-out party at LGB in 1971. That one is parked at the Pima Air Museum in Tucson now.
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The DC-10-10 came into Aviation Tech Services at KPAE for maintenance when I worked there around 2003. Got an "unofficial tour" then. Very cool!
 
If I remember correctly, Orbis did fly an L-1011 for a number of years.
 
weilke said:
I sometimes wonder whether their mission would be better served if they put their ORs into a bunch of 40ft sea containers .The plane doesn't actually fly all that much and it just adds a lot of complications to the logistics. No matter where in the world you go these days, there is going to be equipment t to handle sea containers.Also allows you to park the teaching OR where the patients are.
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I would expect that it adds complexity in some ways and makes it a lot easier in others. The fact that FedEx is such a significant sponsor with quality volunteer pilots and maintenance removes a lot of the complexity since they're then able to handle a large chunk of infrastructure. Sure, a DC-10 requires a significant size runway and airport, but that's pretty easy to find somewhere in the part of the world you're going. Just land and get to work. Got an APU for built-in HVAC and power generation. Makes all the sense in the world to me, all you need is Jet A. I'm sure there's more to it than that, of course, but it seems quite simple in a lot of ways.

40 ft shipping containers are easy to get where you're going, then you have to set it all up, handle power... Given what a DC-10 can haul and how they have it set up, that sounds a lot harder to do with 40 ft shipping containers to me.

Really it seems like one of the best uses of a retired old large airplane that I could think of.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
40 ft shipping containers are easy to get where you're going, then you have to set it all up, handle power... Given what a DC-10 can haul and how they have it set up, that sounds a lot harder to do with 40 ft shipping containers to me.
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You can buy self contained 'coach mounted' ORs. It's basically a tractor trailer with self contained HVAC and and power conditioning equipment. They either have a genset to supply their own power or you hook them to a separate towed unit or mains power. Those units are usually used if a small hospital has to rehab their in-house ORs. So this is not an unknown technology.

To me, the plane is more of a symbol and fundraising tool. There are plenty of surgeons, nurses, OR techs and biomedical engineers who do mission work in the local hospitals under less glamorous conditions.
 
weilke said:
To me, the plane is more of a symbol and fundraising tool. There are plenty of surgeons, nurses, OR techs and biomedical engineers who do mission work in the local hospitals under less glamorous conditions.
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Maybe so, and there's more than one way to do good. I suspect the plane enables certain individuals to do good when they otherwise might not due to various constraints be they personal or professional.

I get asked a lot why fly dogs, wouldn't driving be cheaper? Well, sure. If I sold the MU-2 and got an old Peterbilt (or any number of big trucks) with a sleeper and a climate controlled trailer I could transport way more animals at once. Catch being, I would never do it because I have to work Monday through Friday and can't be gone that long. I wouldn't see myself doing the transport relays, just not my thing. And when you look at the overall costs, it's still pretty competitive.

So on Saturday I flew 2400 nm and transported 55 dogs and cats. It'll be over 2,600 total by the next transport I do, which is supposed to be this weekend.

If you're doing good in the world, you're doing good. We all have our own talents we can use to do good, no need to restrict which ways should be done. Since these organizations end up getting private donations for the most part anyway, it comes down to support what you believe in.
 
weilke said:
I sometimes wonder whether their mission would be better served if they put their ORs into a bunch of 40ft sea containers .
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It's more than just logistics in using the plane. If I recall correctly, when I had the chance to be around the operation, there were a number of reasons why they used the plane. One being the scheduling of the doctors and the individual country partners they rely on to put togather the in-country part. Once the local partner got things arranged--which was a problem in some 3rd world countries--the plane would launch when they were ready. And if you ever shipped stuff via ocean connex it doesn't work on that kind of schedule which means you'd have to have several connex based systems in transit at any one time. The plane provided the necessary flexibility with one operating system.

Also, keep in mind the importation/customs aspect of bringing this type of equipment (i.e., expensive) into each country. Short of emergency humanitarian aid most entities are required to pay the going customs rates on this equipment. And depending on the country it can be very expensive. Most large airports that are part of a certain treaty allow "free zones" in or around the air-side operations area. Basically no duty is paid on the certain aviation items that do not migrate into the host country. Since everything stayed in the aircraft it would not necessarily be considered imported. My company operated in the same manner and never paid duty until I had to send a part into the country interior. I didn't recall the customs people being involved on any large scale around the aircraft. There were no free zones on the maritime side in the countries I worked. If we shipped an aircraft vs fly it down it took anywhere from 10 days to 6 weeks to get the connex cleared from customs and after a 7%+ duty payment.

While there might be a symbol/funding component also, I don't see how they could do the same mission via ocean freight logistics across their past/current network of countries.
 
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