ACA Woking News by Bill Bawden, PRO

20 April 2010

Air Ambulance is a Life-Saver

Surrey and Sussex Air Ambulance
  Derrick Croisdale

This month's guest speaker at the meeting of the AirCrew Association was Larry Culver, the facilities manager of the Surrey Air Ambulance Service. Larry described the work of the helicopter and its crew of a pilot, a doctor and a paramedic based at Dunsfold, and its attendance at an average of two or three emergencies every day.

The fully-equipped M-D 902 helicopter can almost always reach the scene of an accident or other emergency in Surrey or Sussex and convey a patient to the most appropriate hospital far more quickly than a road ambulance and so greatly increase the chances of survival.

It is not generally known that the air ambulance is not funded by the NHS, but is dependent upon the efforts of volunteers to raise funds to provide this service. More about this can be seen at www.surreyairambulance.co.uk.


24 March 2010

Aircrew Visit Space Centre

A party of ACA members visited the Surrey Space Centre, part of the Faculty of Engineering and Electrical Sciences on the campus of the University of Surrey at Guildford.  Dr Craig Underwood, the Centre's deputy director, gave the visitors a presentation on the work carried out and, to the surprise of some, made his talk fully comprehensible to all his ACA guests.

SSC are pioneers and specialists in the design and construction of small satellites using microelectronics and low-cost applications.  Since the first launch in 1981, the Centre has sent a further 33 satellites into earth orbit using the launch vehicles of the space agencies of Russia, the EU and USA.  Dr Underwood concluded by leading his visitors on a tour of the SSC facilities including a view through the observation window of the 'clean room' in which the satellites are assembled.

Dr Craig Underwood explaining aspects of SSC work to visiting ACA Woking aircrew
Derrick Croisdale   Derrick Croisdale

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