founded san francisco california 1983 headquarters mcclellan california u.s. area served parts of northern california central california and northern nevada key people lynn malmstrom ceo ken meehan chairman of the board website www.calstar.org calstar california shock trauma air rescue is a nonprofit regional air medical services company serving california and northern nevada . it is currently the largest nonprofit air ambulance provider on the west coast . 1 contents 1 history 2 flight operations 3 medical operations 4 accomplishments 5 see also 6 references 7 external links history edit calstar was founded as a non profit public benefit corporation in 1983 and began flight operations the following year using a leased bk 117 helicopter based at peninsula hospital in san mateo california . 2 in its first year calstar flew 235 patients . by 2010 calstar s operations had grown to ten helicopter ems bases located throughout northern and central california and a fixed wing program providing inter facility transport services from the company s headquarters at mcclellan park formerly mcclellan air force base in sacramento california . since its inception calstar has provided air medical transport services to more than 50 000 critically ill and injured patients and has logged over 75 000 accident free flight hours . flight operations edit a calstar eurocopter ec 135 on final approach . all calstar pilots have a minimum of 3 000 hours of pilot in command flight time . calstar operates under its own federal aviation administration faa part 135 air carrier certificate and part 145 repair station and is directly responsible for all aspects of its flight operations and aircraft maintenance . calstar operates a fleet of mbb bo 105ls s ; and md 902 explorer helicopters . in 2012 ordered eight eurocopter ec 135 helicopters . as of january 2014 six ec135 aircraft had been delivered . all aircraft are modified with special medical interiors high skid gear high intensity search lights and more than 20 000 radio frequencies for in flight communications . calstar also utilizes king air b200 light twin engine airplanes for long range inter facility transports . 3 medical operations edit a calstar eurocopter ec 135 takes off from a sports facility in morgan hill california with a patient on board . each calstar flight crew is staffed with two registered nurses . calstar flight nurses must achieve and maintain certified flight registered nurse cfrn critical care registered nurse ccrn advanced cardiac life support acls and pediatric advanced life support pals certifications . 4 calstar flight nurses deliver care under the medical control provided by calstar s medical director in accordance with the california nurse s practice act of 1974 as well as specific company procedures and protocols . all medical care provided by calstar comes under close scrutiny from the organization s quality assurance quality improvement program which is protected under section 1157.5 of the california evidence code . since 2001 calstar has been fully accredited by the commission on accreditation of medical transport systems camts which acknowledges excellence in patient care safety and education . 5 accreditation must be maintained through rigorous evaluation every three years . accomplishments edit in 2009 calstar completed a six year project to retrofit its fleet of eurocopter bo 105 ls aircraft with upgraded rolls royce 250 c30p model engines an enhancement designed to improve safety while significantly reducing emissions and operating costs . the faa granted calstar a supplemental type certificate stc approving the engine retrofit for the entire bo 105 ls fleet nationwide . 6 calstar worked closely on the project with rolls royce as well as steve fossett . fossett a famed businessman and adventurer had selected the bo 105 ls for an endurance record he was hoping to set . he was so interested in the c30p engine upgrade that he lent calstar his personal aircraft to conduct all of the required flight testing . 6 the retrofitted bo 105 ls was later nicknamed the fossett special . calstar also received faa approval in 2009 for the first three helicopter wide area augmentation system waas gps approach procedures in the world . the waas procedures were developed by hickok & associates who have since implemented additional helicopter waas approaches for air medical providers throughout the united states europe and asia . 7 see also edit medevac golden hour medicine emergency medical services california emergency medical services authority references edit calstar launches helicopter ambulance service christian r. giller calstar committed to another 25 years of safe and secure patient transports air medical journal september 2009 vol . 28 issue 5 pages 237 241 calstar flight operations calstar medical operations http www.camts.org content view 73 71 camts accredited services archived may 29 2011 at the wayback machine . a b calstar completes major engine upgrades steve fossett played major role dead link faa approves seven heli waas lpv ifps external links edit www.calstar.org calstar site association of air medical services aams site commission on accreditation of medical transport systems camts retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title calstar & oldid 724499994 categories air ambulance services in the united statescompanies based in californiacompanies established in 19831983 establishments in californiahidden categories articles with wayback machine linksall articles with dead external linksarticles with dead external links from december 2013 navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 9 june 2016 at 17 15 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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