Orbis introduced its new Flying Eye Hospital (FEH) to donors, VIP guests and the media with an international tour. Airliner World’s James Ronayne was invited on board when the aircraft visited London/Stansted.
For more than three decades, Orbis has helped to give sight to people living in developing nations. Using its unique Flying Eye Hospital (FEH), the organisation has visited 81 countries, reached hundreds of communities and trained thousands of doctors and nurses.
Orbis’s FEH has come a long way since the Douglas DC-8 it started with in the 1980s. That jet was donated by United Airlines and was in service until it was replaced in 1994 with a DC-10-10 given to the organisation by FedEx. The US cargo giant has also donated the current FEH, a McDonnell Douglas MD-10-30F, N330AU (c/n 46800). The aircraft was the 96th DC-10-30CF built at the manufacturer’s site at Long Beach, California, making its first flight on March 27, 1973. It was delivered to Transamerica Airlines, as N101TV, on April 19, 1973 and served with them until it joined FedEx in July 1984 where it was registered N301FE. The Memphis-based cargo giant converted it to an MD-10-30F by installing a modern digital cockpit, carbon brakes an…
