May 13, 2016:
Pakistan is spending $14 million to acquire two Cessna 208B and four Cessna T206H aircraft. These are modified to operate as aerial ambulances for the military. The 208B is a 3.9 ton aircraft that can carry nine passengers, a ton of cargo or four patients on stretchers plus medical personnel. The 208B can stay in the air three hours at a time. The similar, but lighter (1.6 tons) T206H can carry two patients. Both aircraft can land and take off from unpaved airstrips or roads. This makes them ideal for getting seriously wounded soldiers from remote areas of the tribal territories to hospitals. The 208B has a range of 900 kilometers, while the T206H is 700 kilometers. Both aircraft are single engine prop-driven aircraft with a cruising speed of about 260 kilometers an hour. Fixed wing aircraft are cheaper and faster that helicopters for evacuating wounded, but only if the terrain and conditions allows you to find and use roads or flat ground near the fighting for landings and takeoffs.