Emergency room in the sky: a look into the Bell 429 light-weight HEMS interior kits

When emergencies happen, the minutes matter. For first responders, being able to access the necessary air medical equipment to navigate in life-threatening situations is imperative. With the Bell 429 three lightweight and spacious HEMS interior kit options, first responders can do what they do best: save lives. For many years, Bell has teamed with Med-Pac, Inc., United RotorCraft, AEROLITE, and Spectrum Aeromed to provide HEMS interior kits that are tailored to the Bell 429. As leading designers and manufacturers of air medical interior equipment, each kit provides customers with customized solutions for their individual air medical needs. 

Steve Soliz, segment manager, Bell, commented: “What makes the Bell 429 interior kits advanced are its lightweight and wide-spaced components, allowing for EMS-operators to perform a wide variety of medical operations with ease. The Bell 429 combines one of the fastest light twin EMS aircraft with industry-leading interior kits, making it the chosen aircraft for air medical transport.” 

Hear from some Bell 429 customers on what makes their light-weight interior kits’ unique: 

Air St. Lukes’ AEROLITE Interior Kit

Jeff Galloway, chief pilot, Idaho Helicopters, said: “Not only does the Bell 429 and AEROLITE interior kit allow us to easily sideload our patients into the aircraft, but the equipment abroad is lightweight and easy to use. For our rural EMS groups, having a spacious interior kit means that we can provide lifesaving care to more than one patient at a time. We proudly maintain our configured empty weight of the Bell 429s at around 4,713 pounds, without 110-pound air conditioning units, which gets us a useable payload of over 1,800 pounds.”

Life Flight Network’s Spectrum Aeromed Interior Kit

Brian Rogge, director of clinical services, Life Flight Network, stated: “With the expansive patient care cabin, our clinical teams can perform comprehensive ICU-level care to our patient in-flight. It also affords us the opportunity to easily bring a third crew member that provides a great advantage for both training and specialty teams that may benefit from additional medical crew. We consider the Bell 429 to be one of the most advanced air ambulance helicopters in the Pacific Northwest.”

Air Methods' United RotorCraft Interior Kit

William Kelly Miller, vice president of clinical services, Air Methods said: “The Bell 429 with the United Rotorcraft interior kit is one of the best aircraft out there to complete the air medical mission. Being able to fully customize our light-weight interior has allowed us to design a cabin that not only works well for our air medical crew members, but also includes all the medical equipment we need in-flight.”