Planes Large Enough

The top of the fuselage behind the pilot and wing hinged upward. They sat the litter in, strapped it down and lowered the top.
 
Lawreston said:
NOT to hijack the thread, but this DOES involve funeral home transportation, and it involved Corey's place of calling, Augusta, Maine.

My late father in-law was the 2nd generation of Plummer Funeral Home, in Augusta. His father Henry Plummer owned the first motorized ambulance in the state of Maine. When the powers-that-were came to all the business owners to solicit funds for the building of Augusta General Hospital Mr. Plummer, because of his recent purchase, was cash poor. So he made a pledge. "When you get your hospital built, any patient from Augusta and Farmingdale who needs transportation to your hospital will get free transportation from Plummer Funeral Home." That pledge was carried forward for decades, up until the time that funeral homes ceased having ambulances in the company's fleet of hearses and or Cadillac automobiles, because of the growing prevalence of commercial firms: Ace Ambulance Svc., Allied Ambulance Svc., and other such organizations.
Oh; father in-law -- embalmer/funeral director did tell the story about a casket resident "sitting straight up" one time. ??? - - - might have been another story from the retired US Navy Commander.

HR
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Small world. Anyone who lives in AUG is familiar with Plummers. I've attended many funerals there, including my Father's. I think I've heard that story about Mr. Plummer and the ambulance...folks don't do things like that anymore, I would say.
 
CapeCodJay said:
Henning said:
If they are Jewish and you're flying them within 24 hrs of death unaltered there is what I was told is called Post Mortem Synaptic release which I can assure you scares the crap out of you when they are in a bag next to you...:yikes:
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I've either removed, embalmed, or prepared for final disposal literally thousands of bodies (~300 x 10yrs) and never has this "so called" event happened. I assure you it's mostly for ghost stories and tall tales at the bonfire.
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Glad you called BS on this because the only flag I saw was that Henning limited it to Jewish people and I'm sure all dead bodies behave the same regardless of religion...uh oh, is this a SZ topic?:hairraise:
 
cirrusmx said:
Sac Arrow said:
Stupid question, you're flying with a casket in the back, encounter an emergency and declare. ATC asks you how many souls are on board.

What do you report?
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Yourself and the dead body. In case of a catastrophic accident both of you are going to be death. It wont make any difference if the guy in the casket was already death to begin with. Search and Rescue will be looking for two bodies.
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How would S&R know if the flight plan lists only the pilot? Serious question.
 
Lawreston said:
Oh; father in-law -- embalmer/funeral director did tell the story about a casket resident "sitting straight up" one time. ??? - - - might have been another story from the retired US Navy Commander.

HR
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Was out on the water one day, a boat called the "Family Fun" calls in to USCG and says they discovered a body floating face down in the water a few miles offshore. The lady sounds like she is under considerable stress and explains they have two young children and want the CG to get there asap.

First question the USCG lady asks (serious) after confirming the name of the boat and location - "Is the body dead m'am?"
 
I had a, "wonder if I count him a a soul?" flight once. He was on life support on his way to the big city to be an organ donor. Pretty sure I counted him as a SOB, primarily because I had prefiled the flight plan and expected a live patient.
 
Everskyward said:
I had a, "wonder if I count him a a soul?" flight once. He was on life support on his way to the big city to be an organ donor. Pretty sure I counted him as a SOB, primarily because I had prefiled the flight plan and expected a live patient.
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Well I guess since he was being kept alive by artificial means he still was a SOB.
 
CapeCodJay said:
Well I guess since he was being kept alive by artificial means he still was a SOB.
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Guess it depends on what you mean by "alive". He was technically brain-dead but they wanted to keep his circulation and breathing going in order to preserve the organs. Since I am not a doctor or an ethicist I have no idea if he would be considered to still have a soul.
 
My father use to haul a lot of bodies in a 300 Cherokee 6. It worked out well. Very few were in caskets, normally they placed the body(s) on our stretcher. During high school I flew with him on a number of these trips including one that we brought back 2 kids I new that were killed in a car crash. He always joked around that bodies were his best passengers.
 
CBeaulieu said:
Small world. Anyone who lives in AUG is familiar with Plummers. I've attended many funerals there, including my Father's. I think I've heard that story about Mr. Plummer and the ambulance...folks don't do things like that anymore, I would say.
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Giving credit to other than Mr. Plummer, when John Plummer(FIL) and his brother Norton sold the family business to employee Leo Murphy, it's my understanding Mr. Murphy carried forward the long-ago pledge until non-ownership of ambulance vehicles came about.

Only as a side comment, FIL used to say that whenever there was a motor vehicle accident, there would probably be a race between Plummer FH and Knowlton & Hewins FH to see whose ambulance would "get there first." Sort of a local Hatfield & McCoys scenario.

HR
 
Gene Linder in KC still flies one.

SteveinIndy said:
The top of the fuselage behind the pilot and wing hinged upward. They sat the litter in, strapped it down and lowered the top.
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You guys are missing the obvious solution.. external load.

Avoids all the possible smells, cabin contamination, and provides the deceased with a lasting dose of fresh air. Knowing the next stop, wouldn't you want a little fresh air?

Properly rigged, it also provides for an emergency cut away in the event of high DA takeoff, severe mountain wave, or being vectored above the mother in laws place.
 
A friend of my dad's (Conrad "Connie" Wimbish, GSO) operated a straight 35 Bonanza for years in that business- used a litter system consisting of a 180 deg hinge system on the door, removal of the passenger seat back, and a set of aluminum tubes that created the stretcher/platform. The fittings below the stretcher fit into the seat back/bottom structure of the front passenger seat and were locked in place with clevis pins. I think it was probably a field 337 approval back in that day- or could have been an STC'd kit he bought for the 35...don't really know. After Connie died, another friend of ours whose husband was a Piedmont pilot, bought that airplane and business from Connie's widow, and picked up the accounts. This is where I got familiar with this system, because as a teenager, it was cool helping Barbara set up the Bonanza for it's next mission when the call came in- didn't hurt that she was a really cute blonde in her late twenties, too. However, I disappeared when she got back with the cargo....

Feet to the front and head block in the rear, BTW. And when the Bonanza door would occasionally pop open due to turbulence, it was tough for her to fly the airplane, grab all the charts and approach plates flying around, and keep the sheets from being sucked off the cargo and out the door. At night. In IMC. Over the Holston Mtn VOR....heard that story a time or two.

I got to ride to OSH with her twice in the right seat, (upright)...that's how I know the door would open in turbulence...:D
 
On my most recent checkride, I saw a Cherokee 6-300 pull up next to my Apache. The DPE told me his first job as a commercial pilot was to transport human remains in those (as well as some of the interesting details of what could happen with an increase in altitude).
 
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