Aviation: Avionics Upgrade to “Lima Mike”
Read more stories from our 2024 Impact Report.
In just two months at the end of 2024, donors gave $475,000 for an important avionics upgrade for LifeFlight’s airplane, “Lima Mike.” (By the time Lima Mike arrived back in Maine in February 2025 with these upgrades completed, LifeFlight had successfully met its goal of raising $600,000 for this initiative.) This will enhance our ability to transport more patients, and to do so more safely.
Lima Mike, a Beechcraft King Air B200, is the most utilized asset in LifeFlight’s fleet by hours flown. It can traverse Maine in most weather conditions, including those that ground the helicopter fleet in colder weather. It flies nearly twice as fast and is more efficient than LifeFlight’s helicopters over long distances. Particularly for the hospitals and patients in northern Maine who depend on the plane to swiftly connect them to the medical care they need, there is often no other option.
The upgraded Garmin avionics and autopilot package was installed in January 2025, and was made possible entirely through donor support. This safety-focused technology provides pilots with valuable decision-making information and access to thousands of airports with GPS-based visual approach capability using the autopilot. It displays substantial enhancements for situational awareness, while integrating all primary flight, navigation, weather, terrain, traffic, radio frequency, engine, and fuel data in a format that makes the pilot interface clearer, simpler, and more intuitive.
This upgrade will significantly enhance LifeFlight’s ability to continue to safely traverse Maine every day and night, keeping crews in the sky to provide advanced care to those who need it most.
Patient Story
Clarence Blanchard and his partner, Lee Malloy, have been together for more than a decade. They share a sense of adventure and have visited all 50 states. Their love for traveling led them to plan a three-month road trip to Newfoundland, Canada. They left their home in Litchfield, Maine, in August 2024, but they never made it past Calais.
Lee remembers that they were in their camper van in Calais when Clarence started to feel sick. She drove him to Calais Community Hospital, where doctors diagnosed him with sepsis and determined he needed to be transported to a facility offering a higher level of care. The local ambulance service was not equipped to transport Clarence until his heart rate stabilized, so his medical team requested LifeFlight. Clarence was flown by airplane to Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. While it took Lee nearly two hours to drive to Bangor to be with Clarence, the flight on Lima Mike was about 15 minutes, takeoff to touchdown.
