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The Lear 31 Jets used by AirLife Denver

Submitted by Mark Riemer, AirLife FN

AirLife Denver's Two Lear31 Tails

Have you ever wondered why AirLife Denver is the only Emergency Air Medical Transport provider to utilize the Lear 31 in the Rocky Mountain region?  Well, so did I and that’s why I asked our Lead Fixed Wing Pilot Rod Champney that very question.  If you know Rod, you know that what I got in return was a power point presentation on that very subject. 

AirLife Denver and our fixed wing vendor, International Jet Aviation, believe the Lear 31 is the safest and fastest aircraft for our type of mission.  The criteria AirLife requires is an aircraft that can perform day and night, has capabilities for varied and rapidly changing weather conditions, high mountain performance, ability to land and take off from shorter runways, and has an uncompromised safety record.

AirLife used Lear 25 jets for our missions for many years and recently upgraded to two Lear 31 jets, which we are very excieted to be flying in.  The Lear 31 jets are 32% more fuel efficient that the Lear 25s, allow for GPS approaches and takeoffs, are significantly quieter and have overall improved performance. In fact, as the chart below illustrates, the Lear 31 has significant advantages over all of the commonly used air medical transport aircraft.

Aircraft	2-Eng Climb	Single Eng Climb	Max Altitude	Single Eng Max Alt	Speed
Lear 31A	5710	1610	46,200	26,200	505 mph
Citation II	3130	930	41,000	23,500	405 mph
King Air 200	2450	740	33,000	19,150	320 mph
King Air C90	1955	539	28,100	15,050	265 mph
Pilatus PC12	1680	Negative!	30,000	Zero!	300 mph