On Monday, the Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust (GSTFT) announced a partnership with Wing, the drone delivery arm of Google parent Alphabet, and Apian, the developer of an application programming interface (API) for medical logistics founded by former NHS doctors, to move blood between two hospitals in less than two minutes. The U.K.’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has approved an airspace corridor between the hospitals and will regulate the trial.

The six-month program, expected to begin in the fall, will serve Guy’s Hospital and St Thomas’ Hospital in central London. According to GSTFT, moving samples between the sites can take more than half an hour by van or bike courier. But per a study in the British Journal of Haematology, transporting blood by drone is just as safe as doing so by ground vehicle.

“The drone pilot combines two of our key priorities—providing the best possible patient care and improving sustainability,” said professor Ian Abbs, CEO of GSTFT.

Howard Dawber, the deputy mayor of London for business and growth, also praised the service.

Wing and Apian have been delivering surgical tools and other medical supplies in Dublin since July. In addition to those Ireland services, Apian has delivered chemotherapy treatment to cancer patients for the Isle of Wight NHS Trust and is working with Zipline to expand a prior trial for the Northumbria Trust.

In London, Wing drones will transport blood samples taken from patients awaiting surgery who are at risk of complications due to bleeding disorders. The aircraft are expected to slash delivery times, allowing NHS technicians to more quickly analyze the sample and determine if the procedure is safe.

The fully electric aircraft—which have completed more than 400,000 deliveries worldwide to date—also figure to reduce emissions while alleviating some ground traffic.

“Drones can increase the responsiveness and resilience of healthcare logistics, allowing clinicians to be more productive and patients to get the care they need sooner,” said Dr. Hammad Jeilani, co-founder of Apian.

Wing drones will transfer samples on demand, flying between the two hospital rooftops at over 60 mph and 200 feet in the air—high enough, Wing says, that their buzzing will blend into the city’s soundscape. The aircraft can tolerate moderate rain and wind. Per Apian, they will carry about 2.2 pounds, so it appears the service will not use Wing’s newer model, which can carry up to 5 pounds.

The drones are largely automated and will follow predetermined routes overseen by a remote pilot, similar to Wing’s U.S. service. Flights will take place during daytime hours from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. local time, Monday through Friday, with no more than 10 trips per day.

The drones are equipped with low-resolution cameras, but according to Wing, no live feed is available, even for its own pilots.

According to Apian, the trial could expand to fly a wider range of “pathology items, medicines and supplies.” In addition to Guy’s and St Thomas’, GSTFT operates three other main hospitals, which could be candidates for an expansion.

“This is one of the many reasons that we are working with companies through our sandbox trials programme, to enable the test and development of pioneering new aviation technology in the U.K.,” said Sophie O’Sullivan, director of the CAA’s Future of Flight program.

Drone delivery is being bolstered by U.K. leaders at the highest levels. The country’s Department for Transport, for example, in March released its Future of Flight Action Plan, a blueprint to make drone deliveries routine by 2027.

Part of that plan is the CAA’s Future Flight Challenge, a nearly $400 million initiative that funds a variety of drone delivery projects. The CAA has already authorized several trials under the program to study drones for inspections, emergency services, and policing. In August, the regulator selected six participants, including Amazon’s Prime Air, for an upcoming round of trials.

The U.K. government has also poured over $9 million into Project CAELUS, which uses drones to deliver medical supplies in Scotland, while the Royal Mail is exploring parcel delivery by drone.

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“We are working with CAE to be where our customers need us to be, providing them with our latest technological updates and best-in-class support. Embraer and CAE are long-term partners to provide exceptional services to the market,” said Carlos Naufel, president and CEO of Embraer services and support. 

Said Alexandre Prevost, CAE’s division president, business aviation and helicopter training: “The two new simulators will double our Phenom 300 training capacity in Las Vegas and London and allow ECTS to train more pilots at a critical time. Over the next 10 years, CAE forecasts a need for 32,000 business aviation pilots, and we are working with our partners at Embraer to ensure Phenom 300 customers have the highly qualified pilots they need to keep them flying.”

• READ MORE: Embraer Unveils Autothrottle for Phenom 300E

In a NBAA-BACE preview briefing with FLYING earlier in October, Embraer vice president of customer support Marsha Woelber put the addition into the context of the overall service program, which includes five owned service centers and more than 60 authorized service centers around the world, in addition to its training partners. “In the past few years, our fleet has grown a lot,” Woelber said. “There have been a lot of secondary market transactions…and overall a lot of attrition in our flight departments that has created a significant increase in demand for pilot slots.”

“Earlier this year, we opened a Phenom simulator facility in Las Vegas, that was in April,” said Woelber, who noted that the sim installed this spring was the seventh one on line in the partnership, and the coming installations in February (London) and in Q3 2024 in Las Vegas represent the eighth and ninth units, respectively.

The post CAE Doubles Capacity for Embraer Phenom 300E Training with Sims in London, Las Vegas appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The airline is “on track to use approximately 10 million gallons in 2023, nearly three times more than 2022 and close to 10 times more than 2019,” it said in a statement.

The SAF that United is using is provided by Neste sustainable aviation fuel. 

SAF is produced from 100 percent renewable resources including used cooking oil and animal fat waste. Use of SAF is designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80 percent of the fuel’s life cycle as compared to conventional jet fuel. 

According to company officials, United was the first airline to commit to net zero carbon emissions by 2050, without relying on traditional carbon offsets.

• READ MORE: Neste Delivers More than 500,000 Gallons of SAF to LAX

“It’s remarkable to see that in just a few years United has exponentially increased its SAF use,” said United chief sustainability officer Lauren Riley. “While 10 million gallons of SAF in 2023 represents a fraction of what we need, we have also made big investments in producers that are using everything from ethanol to algae, to CO_2, to help increase our available future supply.

“We believe these investments, along with our continued collaboration with policymakers, cross-industry businesses, and other airlines will help us scale this brand-new industry to achieve comparable success to solar and wind,” Riley added.

Industry officials note that in the future household trash, forest waste, and other feedstocks may be used to create SAF.

According to a United spokesperson, the airline runs 216 flights per day out of SFO, adding that in addition to being better for the environment, the use of SAF provides economic incentive for the airline as the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard provides credits for low-carbon fuels. 

The credits fluctuate in value, but are roughly $1 per gallon as of May 4.

To date, United has invested in the production of over five billion gallons of SAF. The deliveries of sustainable fuel began at San Francisco International in April of 2023, with United receiving 1.5 million gallons. The remainder of the carrier’s SAF supply will be used at Los Angeles International Airport (KLAX), which has been utilizing SAF since 2016, and Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport (EHAM), which has been using SAF since 2022.

In addition, United expects to begin utilizing SAF at London Heathrow Airport (EGLL) later this year, allowing United to participate in the airport’s SAF incentive program.

Eco-Skies Alliance Round 3

The SAF used on United’s flights is being paid for in part through the company’s Eco-Skies Alliance, an innovative program designed for participating companies to work together to share the “green premium,” or the cost associated with purchasing lower emission fuels.

United’s Eco-Skies Alliance was launched in 2021, and it provides its corporate customers with the opportunity to build transparency and enable true, certified SAF emissions reductions associated with travel of people or goods on United flights.

The company noted that United’s Eco-Skies Alliance “has collectively contributed toward the purchase of nearly 15 million gallons of SAF. With its up-to-80-percent greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions on a lifecycle basis compared to conventional jet fuel, this is enough SAF to reduce approximately 150,000 metric tons of GHG emissions, or enough to fly passengers close to 1 billion miles.”

Including today’s newly announced participants, the program has 24 participants including Audi, Bank of America, Cisco, Corporate Travel Management, DB Schendker, First Eagle Investments, Macquarie Group, and Thermo Fisher Scientific.

In addition to the Eco-Skies Alliance Program, United also established a venture fund—United Airlines Ventures—to identify and invest in companies and technologies that can decarbonize air travel through the UAV Sustainable Flight Fund. According to the airline, these strategic investments include carbon capture, hydrogen-electric engines, electric regional aircraft, and air taxis.

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