High Speed Long Range MEDEVAC - Critical Care Transport - Level II to Level III - Implications on Medical Treatment Facilities

Incremental improvements in aircraft performance often result in comparably modest operational benefits. Quantum changes in aircraft performance often require alternative Concepts of Operations (CONOPS) to yield significant operational advantages. Quantifying the operational benefits and potential system-wide economic ramifications of such an aircraft require sophisticated tools that model not just the platform but the systems within which it operates. A critical component of the MEDEVAC process is moving urgent and priority patients from a Level II (Brigade) facility to the Division's Level III Combat Support Hospital (CSH). If a Division is advancing on an objective the range to the CSH can grow beyond the range of legacy helicopters, requiring construction of additional CSHs along the path of advance. Alternatively a faster aircraft with greater range can allow the CSHs to be positioned further away from the Division. The positioning of these aircraft, along with the ability to consolidate them at one location, can reduce the aviation and medical treatment facilities footprint. This paper documents a study that examined the two questions. 1) "If a vertical lift aircraft has superior speed, range, and payload, how far away can the CSH be from the Division and still be able to receive patients in a "timely manner?" and 2) "What is the bed-down that enables the timely delivery?" For this study we developed an ExtendSim© discreet event simulation that performs the entire bed-clearing, maintenance, and surgery operations and measures the impact of aircraft location, performance characteristics, maintenance, availability (Ao), as well as casualty rates and surgical capability on the potential for Disability or Death based on the transit from a Level II to a Level III facility. This paper focuses on a specific experiment that looked specifically at different casualty rates per day, aircraft Availability (Ao), and ranges to the CSH to determine the optimum location and number of aircraft for the varying CSH distances. V-22 performance data was used for analysis, but the simulation can use any future high speed long range aircraft with vertical take-off and landing capabilities.