Ian Mousette, 59, is a pilot for the Yorkshire Air Ambulance. The former military pilot has worked for the rapid response emergency service for the last five years after 17 years flying for the police and also Lincolnshire and Notts Air Ambulance.

Here he talks about the special challenges and pleasures of flying in the Yorkshire Dales.

"We get called to a wide variety of cases – from farming and walking accidents, to cyclists coming off their bikes on some of the steep descents we have.

In the Dales, many of the incidents are road traffic related, sometimes involving a motorbike, or horse riding accidents.

Prior to dispatching the helicopter, pinpointing casualties can start with triangulating mobile phone signals to get a grid reference – this helps us if the caller is not sure of their location. Once airborne, we can then narrow it down by looking for obvious signs on the ground such as slow moving traffic, flashing blue lights or people signalling up to you.

A couple of our Paramedics are members of the local Mountain Rescue Teams so have an excellent and intimate knowledge of the Dales which can be a real help, especially when trying to reach people who have had accidents in more remote and rural locations.

We fly from Yorkshire Air Ambulance’s air base in the North of the region at RAF Topcliffe, near Thirsk – one of two bases the Charity has. The weather often plays a major part in our daily operations, particularly with low cloud and hill fog to contend with in the autumn and winter months, but we can fly to most places on most days in the Dales.

In some of our more remote locations, locating the incident is the first issue we have to contend with, but then we have to find a safe and suitable place to land close to the casualty – this can sometimes be more of a challenge for us .

We work very closely with other emergency services such as Mountain Rescue Teams, local Police forces and the Highways Agency who often assist us in helping to land our helicopter safely.

Sometimes the paramedics have to make the last part of their journey to the patient on foot. On rare occasions, they’ve even been known to hitch a lift! However it’s all dependent on how close to the incident the helicopter has been able to land.

As an Air Ambulance Pilot, I obviously appreciate someone else is having a very bad day for us to be involved, but it is an absolute joy and privilege to help people in their hour of need and to fly around such glorious countryside.

We are a very close team at the YAA, and teamwork is one of our core ethics. As a pilot this is something we take very seriously. So, you recognise that there is often a very ill person in the back of the helicopter and the paramedics are working hard to treat their injuries, often to save their life. My role is to ensure I can get them safely, and as quickly as possible to hospital.

In the last few months, we have been flying our new state-of-the-art Airbus H145’s which offer exceptional flight performance and have significantly lower operational and maintenance costs. The H145 is night capable, enabling longer flying hours, and offers a much larger cabin area to treat patients in flight.

It has been a challenge getting to grips with the new technology – a bit like moving from having a Commodore 64 computer to having 4 iPads with the latest technologies in front of you – but I am enjoying it and it is great to know that I can get to more patients in the Dales, more quickly."

lYou can watch the crews in action Helicopter ER on Monday nights at 9pm on Really or on catch-up on UKTV Play