More physics of flight-- because of the nature of rotary wings, all but a very few helicopters have a top speed of about 200 knots, as against the top speed of the Lear jets often used as air ambulances of medical transports, which cruise at over 450 knots. So when a hospital in Phoenix (1668 air miles away) harvests a heart for sick kids, it could go by Lear (3 hours 45 minutes) or by helicopter (at least 8 hours). If I had a kid waiting for a heart transplant, I know which aircraft I'd want that cooler on.

As I have pointed out before, to use fixed-wing aircraft effectively, you need medical reliever airports. Mixing the lighter aircraft used for medical transport with large jets used for scheduled passenger and freight flights poses unacceptable hazards.

You can. if you wish, argue about the best location for Bandage 1 and Bandage 2, although I have never seen an analysis that takes into account the need for helicopter evacuation in the event of a mass casualty accident in the industrial complexes along Lake Ontario to the West of Toronto. I know that if the (Creator forbid) the Ford plant or the refinery in Oakville had a mass casualty accident, helicopters from Buttonville or Barrie would have to detour around Pearson airspace, adding several minutes to their journey, minutes that I would not want workers with serious burns to have to wait. Keeping emergency helicopters at Toronto City Centre Airport, where they can fly directly down the lake shore, offers us insurance that, as with most insurance policies, we hope we will never need.

However, when it comes to fixed-wing medical flights, we need medical reliever airports to allow Toronto to function effectively as Canada's premier medical center. Helicopters simply can't make the long range flights required, and Toronto City Centre Airport, sited close to hospital row, makes the ideal facility to allow the city to fulfill that responsibility.

John Spragge