Two helicopters from the Otago Southland Rescue Helicopter Trust have been flying rescue missions in Hawke’s Bay since Tuesday and brought a Starlink device with them.
Starlink is a service, operated by American space exploration company SpaceX, which provides internet access by connecting to satellites in low orbit.
Helicopters Otago chief executive Graeme Gale said the company’s Starlink was so new they had not even tested it beyond its hangers at Mosgiel.
The decision had been made to take it up to Hawke’s Bay at the last minute and the device quickly proved its worth.
It was stored in a watertight case, powered by a battery about the size of a shoebox and took about two minutes to connect to a satellite once deployed on the ground.
The setup enabled everyone within a range of up to 800m to access high speed internet and took about 30 seconds to pack down, he said.
"I’m absolutely blown away by it," Mr Gale said.
The service was happy to share the capability, which was proving popular — especially with other emergency services in the area around Hastings, where the Otago helicopters were operating.
As far as he was aware, the Otago Southland Rescue Helicopter Trust was the only emergency service using the system in New Zealand.
It was not likely to be for long and Mr Gale had already given the go-ahead to buy another of the devices, to be based in Queenstown.
The Otago Southland Rescue Helicopter trust did a lot of rescues in remote areas where there was no cellphone coverage.
On January 11, the response to a head-on collision where six people where injured in a remote area near Makarora had been hampered by poor communications.
Five helicopters and six St John road units attended a job which would have been far more straightforward if communications had not relied upon satellite phones, which were expensive and tended to drop in and out of service.
By contrast, Skylink was cheaper, more reliable and more versatile — although satellite phones still had the advantage that they could be used while flying in a helicopter, Mr Gale said.
