- Pulse can cover 2,800 square miles in under eight minutes and land on rocky terrain.
- The aircraft delivers medics to stabilize patients onsite rather than transporting them to hospitals.
- Jump Aero needs around $50 million to finish developing the technology before deployment.
Mere minutes could be the difference between life or death for an injured person in a rural area while they wait for an ambulance to arrive.
Carl Dietrich, the co-founder, president and chief designer of Jump Aero, said that’s what drove him to design a fully electric aircraft that can cut emergency response times in half.
The aircraft is still in development but could be ready to fly as early as next year.
Ready for takeoff
Pulse, Jump Aero’s spaceship-like electric aircraft that Dietrich compared to the lunar lander in design, took seven years to develop and is unlike any other kind of aircraft, he said.
He saw a need, especially in rural communities far from hospitals, for a quicker way to get injured people the medical care they need.
“Helicopters take generally about 3 minutes to spool up, and in a rapid response scenario where the patient is not getting oxygen at that point, those minutes are really expensive,” he said. Expensive in a figurative sense for the patient losing oxygen, and expensive in a literal sense for insurance companies, Dietrich explained.
What makes Pulse unique and effective is how quickly it can take off and land, and how fast it can travel. In less than eight minutes, Dietrich said it can cover 2,800 square miles. “That’s a capability that doesn’t exist” in other emergency response aircraft, he said.
Pulse can also land in remote and rocky areas, like “on a rural dirt road or somebody’s backyard” because of its four shock-absorbing landing points, Dietrich said.
And it’s much quieter than a helicopter because it’s powered by batteries, noted Clint Harper, the director of integration at Future Flight Global. He said communities appreciate that.
Sending help
Pulse is a piloted aircraft that can transport a medic or EMT trained to pilot it. The pilot flies while standing up and looks out a large window to see where to go and land.
Instead of picking patients up and taking them to a hospital, Pulse allows help to arrive quicker than current technology does.
“They fly themselves to the scene of the emergency, they get out with their life-saving equipment and they go and they stabilize the patient,” Dietrich said. “They stay with the patient until the ambulance shows up, and then oftentimes they’ll actually go with the patient because they know the most about the patient at that moment.”
In the future, Dietrich said Pulse could potentially fly itself home after the pilot is dropped off.
The time frame and cost
The aircraft is expected to be flying “as soon as next year” and “in the field as soon as a couple years after that,” Dietrich said. Much of the timing depends on money and contracts the company is working to secure. Jump Aero needs around $50 million to finish developing the technology.
Dietrich estimated an aircraft like Pulse will sell for $1.8 million to $2 million. To put that in perspective, “the least expensive helicopter right now is about $2.4 million,” and many sell for $5 million, he said.
And it’s not meant to replace ambulances or helicopters. “It’s meant to be a complementary technology,” he said. Getting medical help to patients in rural areas faster while they wait for transportation to arrive can shave off crucial minutes and save lives.