RACQ LifeFlight Rescue opens new refueling facility
The facility, installed at the provider’s base at Brisbane Airport, was provided by fuel supplier IOR and will improve the efficiency and cost management of aircraft refueling
Queensland air ambulance provider RACQ LifeFlight Rescue has opened a new fuel storage and management facility at its base at Brisbane Airport, built by fuel supplier IOR.
The facility, worth around A$500,000, was provided by IOR as part of its ongoing fuel supply arrangements and is expected to improve the efficiency of refueling and make overhead costs more manageable.
The fuel tank has a 55,000 liter capacity and offers refueling times of 120 liters per minute for helicopters, and 340 liters per minute for fixed-wing aircraft.
RACQ Lifeflight’s Rescue General Manager of Operations Brian Guthrie commented: “This fuel tank will enable our flight crews to refuel their aircraft and be ready to respond to a critical mission, more efficiently.”
The new facility will enable crews to refuel the aircraft themselves, will enable LifeFlight and IOR to remotely monitor fuel usage and quantity. IOR has also installed an electronic quality control sampling cabinet to the tank.
Ahead of the opening of the new facility, RACQ LifeFlight Rescue crews were provided with extensive safety training its use.
The new facility ends the provider’s previous reliance on outside contractors for refueling
The station will allow RACQ Lifeflight Rescue to end its previous reliance on outside contractors for the refueling of its rotory and fixed-wing aircraft. The provider’s aircraft have previously been refueled using public refueling stations at Brisbane Airport – however, this caused delays due to high demand from other aircraft.
“Understandably, there are a lot of aircraft in line for fuel at Brisbane Airport and our crews have, at times, been left waiting for their turn to fill up,” said RACQ LifeFlight Rescue General Manager of Fixed Wing and LifeFlight Retrieval Medicine, Timothy McGuire.
RACQ LifeFlight Rescue requires all aircraft to be refueled after every mission to ensure quick response times for future callouts. In 2021, it reported a record 1,112 flying hours in response to 470 missions for its helicopter crews. Its fixed-wing crews recorded 185 rescue missions for the same year. Across LifeFlight Australia as a whole, the provider flew a total of 2,503 critical missions in 2021.
Guthrie added: “It has taken the support of the Brisbane Airport Corporation, our landlords at Xflight Aviation and a considerable upfront financial investment from IOR. The upfront financial investment from IOR to build and commission the facility was so significant that without its collective, committed, and ongoing support, LifeFlight would not have been able to purchase a fuel tank of this caliber.”