Are Flying Paramedics in Our Future?

Recent articles, both by James Careless in this magazine and elsewhere, have described a self-piloted solo personal aircraft—the electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle (eVTOL)—designed to get a single EMS professional to the scene of a medical crisis in an isolated rural area within minutes.

Although to the average ground-based EMS professional, the eVTOL may look like a prop for a cheesy sci-fi movie, Petaluma, California-based Jump Aero projects that its dream for the JA1 Pulse could be a reality on the market in the next four years. The Pulse’s eight vertical electric propeller engines give its EMS pilot the ability to take off and land while standing upright but then fly horizontally prone like in a hang-glider, at nearly 290 miles per hour, steering with a joy stick.

The JA1 Pulse could facilitate emergency response at a fraction of the cost of existing medical helicopters or air ambulances. It is not designed to move patients but to bring EMS personnel and medical equipment (up to 330 pounds total) to the scene of an emergency. Other personal aircraft companies pursuing the niche market of EMS transport include Limosa, ERC Systems, and Volocopter.

Jump Aero has built subscale models of its eVTOL and recently won a contract from the U.S. Air Force to partially fund construction of the first full-scale prototype. First tested as a drone, it will get its maiden flight deployment with a live pilot sometime in 2026, said Carl Dietrich, founder and CEO of Jump Aero. Then second-generation aircraft will be deployed in trial operations in 2027.

“We expect to learn a lot from the trial deployments, including what are the real-world operating costs of the system in the field, and things like what gets dinged up fastest in real world operations,” Dietrich said. “Then we’ll get an opportunity to roll these lessons learned into the final iteration of the design and the training curriculum.”

A Small Craft Industry

Self-flying personal aircraft for EMS constitute a minor segment of a burgeoning small aircraft industry. Other developments in personal air vehicles include drones, air taxis, small fixed-wing engines, self-flying cargo planes, and light jets. Autonomous flight, under the control of an on-board autonomous robotic system, is coming to civil aviation sooner than anyone thinks, according to a Feb. 26, 2023, article in Forbes Magazine.

China’s eHANG has already earned certification from that country’s Civil Aviation Administration for its self-flying passenger eVTOL. Hundreds of other designers, using billions of dollars from venture capital, private equity and automotive companies, are hard at work on the personal aircraft that will fill the skies in the near future. Observers suggest a significant amount of healthy skepticism about some these developments is also in order.

In the United States advances in aviation technology are also expected to transform the helicopter and fixed wing air ambulance already used to fly patients to the emergency care they need—although currently at higher expense. For the EMS electronic vehicle, the goal is to be quieter, with lower emissions and less energy use, along with its lower cost. But how might this fast-flying industry impact EMS operations? And how can today’s EMS personnel get ready for this anticipated future?

The impact will come from multiple directions, said Kenji Sugahara, director of the state of Oregon’s Department of Aviation (DOA), which oversees public use airports and state-owned airports in Oregon and distributes grant money. DOA’s role is to help educate policymakers at the state and local levels to what’s coming.

In November 2023 it signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Jump Aero to help determine how to implement this new approach to emergency transport for rural Oregon. DOA projects a potential need for up to 126 JA1 Pulse aircraft to blanket the state, Sugahara said. Oregon has not committed to buying any yet, “although we’re very interested in supporting the purchase of a number of them.” Jump Aero has signed similar agreements with the Utah Department of Transportation’s Division of Aeronautics and with private ambulance companies.

“The larger concept we’re talking about is advanced air mobility, which actually encompasses a lot of different things,” Sugahara said. “We’re talking about electronic aircraft and personal aircraft, and short take-off and landing electric vehicles, as well as eVTOL. And you’ll see more cargo delivery, which since it doesn’t involve carrying people, making the risk more acceptable.” There’s also a need for infrastructure, such as bases at small rural airports, licensed as vertiports and offering safe landing and takeoff areas.

There are a couple of ways that advanced air mobility could really benefit EMS, Sugahara said. The first is through drones, with the potential that they could be dropping off AEDs or other needed equipment while getting to the scene first and checking out the site. Drones are already used to drop off emergency medical supplies in some location in this country and around the world.

As soon as the drone identifies a time-sensitive need for EMS, the next step could be to send the eVTOL and its paramedic. Eventually, he said, patients might be packed into an autonomous air vehicle and whisked to the hospital—although our culture may not yet be fully comfortable with that concept yet.

First on the Scene

The first thing to know about the eVTOL revolution, Dietrich said, is that for the vast majority of EMS personnel, this kind of air travel isn’t likely to change their day-to-day working lives. “The way this might impact them in the future is if they happen to operate in rural areas where it takes longer to respond to EMS calls on the ground.”

If you’re an ambulance crew, there may be an air-based paramedic or EMT on the scene when you get there, he said. “They’ll have gotten there in this aircraft, but their job is to stabilize patients, not to change their mode of transport.” In preparation for ambulance transport, they could be another set of hands to prep the patients or even travel with them, with a pickup truck sent to retrieve the eVTOL.

Dietrich encouraged EMS personnel to get informed about the range of personal aircraft vehicles and modes of operation that might be just around the corner. Consider taking a flying lesson in the flight school at the nearest local airport, perhaps using a Cessna 172 or similar craft. “It might behoove your audience to go out and try an intro to flight class. If you’ve got the time, see if this is something that you might like to pursue.”

It is likely that an Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)-issued private pilot’s license will be required in order to pilot an eVTOL. Obtaining such a license can take at least 40 hours of training, mostly in the air, plus ground school, at a cost that can run from $10,000 to $20,000. A commercial pilot’s license, needed to fly other people, requires 190 to 250 flight hours and costs between $55,000 and $100,000. But a commercial license won’t be needed to fly Jump Aero’s eVTOL, Dietrich said.

“They will need to have to have basic familiarity with aviation—what it is to be a pilot in command, the responsibilities that come with that sort of thing, how weather can impact your operations. We want them to understand the airspace,” he said. “Then they’ll need to get qualified to fly this specific vehicle, with the specified training from Jump Aero still to be determined.”

“Is flying a small aircraft something that you might actually want to do?” Dietrich asked. For some, it could be a lot of fun, and they’re probably in line to get paid a good bit more. Still working as paramedics, their ability to operate the eVTOL will likely elevate them to a higher pay scale. “I very much see this as a highly desirable job because you’re going to feel like Superman in this thing.”

To the Moon and Back

While many EMS providers have been dealing with challenges like inadequate staffing, hospital overcrowding, burnout, bad roads and weather, groups like the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)—the people who got us to the moon and back—have pushed the concept of advanced air mobility (AAM) for EMS and in other contexts. That means safe, accessible, automated, and affordable air transportation.

But how do we separate the promising advances from those that are less likely and see beyond the promotional language? “That is a multi-dimensional problem,” said Nancy Mendonca, deputy integration manager for NASA’s Advanced Air Mobility Mission. “It depends on whether you’re considering piloted or fully automated aircraft, cargo or passenger carrying, aircraft built for commercial or defense use, among other considerations. Certifications by FAA will also be part of this picture.”

NASA’s role is providing new technologies, research findings and subject matter expertise to the AAM industry to bolster its economic success. “AAM will have an economic impact, and will improve many areas of life, including public safety,” Mendonca said in a recent email interview with EMS World.

NASA’s GoAERO (Aerial Emergency Response Opportunities), backed by a number of high-powered partners in aerospace, announced in February 2024 a three-year competition to encourage entrants to build self-flying emergency aircraft, with a “fly-off” competition planned for February 2027.

“One of the most exciting things to me about these developments is that the existence of this vehicle could change the economics of rural emergency response,” Dietrich said. In some small rural communities, it is getting harder to have a professional ambulance team on duty 24/7 because there aren’t enough people living in that community to support full-time professionals waiting for something to happen.

Because the eVTOL, with its greater speed, could cover a much larger geography within a critical 10-minute window, it could serve multiple existing EMS service areas where ground ambulance crews can be on call instead of on duty. “Where before you only had volunteer crews, now you can expand the rural tax base to support multiple rural counties with this one aircraft and its team based at the airport.” Dietrich said.

“From my perspective, I’m an engineer, a tech guy, an aviator, a pilot, and I see no fundamental reason why this technology should not be possible to get out there into the world. If it doesn’t happen, that will be more a question of money or something like that. But from a tech perspective, this is a completely solvable problem,” Dietrich said.  “We believe all the signs are very positive, and there’s definitely an acute need for this type of time savings for emergencies in rural areas.”