STARS Air Ambulance received the first of nine new Airbus H145 helicopters on Thursday, which will eventually replace its fleet of BK117s.

“This is an epic, unbelievable day for us,” said CEO Andrea Robertson.

The current fleet of helicopters have been in use by STARS since the organization that provides life-saving missions across western Canada was formed in 1985.

“They’re getting costlier to maintain, parts are harder to find and they’re 34 years old, so the decision was made that now was the time,” said Robertson.

STARS announced last year they will begin replacing their fleet of nine BK117 machines with the H145s at an estimated cost of $117 million.

The province announced $13 million in funding earlier this year and the federal government has committed $65 million. Coupled with fundraising efforts, STARS now has $91 million toward that goal.

Robertson said it will take several years to replace the entire fleet.

Pilots and medical staff will need to undergo additional training before new machine can begin transporting patients.

“They’re all trained and ready to go, but now we want them flying in the mountains, at night, landing at scenes, all of that before we lift our first patient,” said Robertson.

“Same is true with our air medical crew. We want them very familiar with the back, where everything is, so they can get it at a moment’s notice, because when you’re with us you’re critically ill and we don’t want to be thinking, we want to be just doing."

The new machine should be in service by the summer.

Flight paramedic Greg Barton says the new helicopter will allow them to better treat patients.

“We can mount the equipment on the ceiling, we can mount it on a bridge that goes over the patient’s body and really allow the crew to configure that in the way that suits them,” he said.

“Seconds do matter, and being able to get that equipment on that patient and monitor them in a timely fashion is critical to us.”

Along with being smoother and quieter, Barton said the new machine also has the capability of sending data to waiting physicians in real time.

STARS has flown more than 40,000 missions across western Canada since it was formed.