Air Drops, WHY NOT???

[nadinbrzezinski]

Air drops.

There are several problems with air drops, which are not obvious to people who have never had to deal with them. We did, as training.

Gear tends not to survive the landing, some delicate gear, see not bandages and gauze medical equipment, and even bottles, water bottles... oh IV bags burst nicely.

You need a clear area without people, or the risk of injury to those on the ground is great. This city is more than just a little crowded so finding a relatively flat, and chiefly "safe" LZ... good luck, and you still need people on the ground.

Oh so they could use Emergency Rations.

EMRATS are all but familiar with your target population (and taste like crap, and have a ... different look to them). Also, while they can be dropped on yellow pouches on a small parachute, if the chute fails they will reach terminal velocity and could break a bone or kill. That is why they are mostly used in very isolated areas (like Afghanistan), or as a very last resort. If they cannot get the situation stabilized enough where they can start doing ground distribution they just might, but we are not there yet.

Why does this thing about taste, and look matter? I mean you will eat if hungry enough right? WRONG. And you'd be amazed to know that Logistics also has to consider this little factoid in the food distributed to locals.

[tabatha]

1. I heard that there will be helicopters tomorrow.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Helicopters can find a place to land and do direct distribution

if they have people on the ground they can even do some heavier lift.

Helos are not air drops

And yes they will be and that is good news. The Fleet is in range by tomorrow

[napi21]

7. One problem they're worried about now is that any food availability or water especiually

will be attacked by throngs of people. I think we can all understand that and the reason why, but a hhelio can only carry so much, and would be overwhelmed. I've never had rescue training so I don't know what the solutions are, but I sure understand the concerns abour being overwhelmed by a lot of panicked people!

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. Why LZ safety will be critical

and I suspect they will only use the helos in relatively secured LZs, which is manpower intensive. the helo has the same problem as a ten ton truck.

And this is not a problem limited to Haiti... it is condition normal in a disaster.

[jwirr]

22. Wouldn't a helicopter be able to hover low over the crowd? That

could be an advantage but we would still have the problem of people fighting over the food/water when it was dropped. I remember when our military went to the aid of that country where they were starving they tried to drive the trucks into the inland areas and were attacked. Once the hunger/thirst/fear/anger set in the crowds are not thinking clearly.

[PacerLJ35]

23. That's not really a safe alternative either

Ever been underneath a UH-60 hovering? It'll knock you flat on your ass...imagine a heavier helicopter like the CH-53...

[nadinbrzezinski]

24. no the bottles burst

I did training and it was exactly that, wiht choppers. The Mexican AF decided to teach us why you do not dick with this. They dropped a training pallet with water and rice on it. We were 600 yards from it, and we were soaked. Most of the bottles burst on impact.

I must say it was pretty and VERY SCARY to see. Though it drove the point as to how dangerous this was.

The drop was less than twenty feet.

Oh and did not even talk of the wash at range... under it, I can't imagine.

[Winterblues]

30. The US Military is there for protection and for establishing order

The items will be handed out in an orderly fashion and folks will follow directions..In fact this is already happening. The airport was the first to be secured. Special Forces were the ones to accomplish this along with some seabees. Runways were cleared and new tower erected and emergency lighting established..Once planes can land and take off then both people and equipment can be sent where needed.

[northernlights]

32. helicopters were bringing in supplies and aide the morning after

from next door at the Dominican Republic, and other immediate neighbors.

[Hekate]

3. KnR, Nadine. I knew that, but bet many others didn't.

:hi:

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. I do not blame people for not knowing things like this

I really don't.

But why at this point I feel it is the job of those who did this for a while to try to educate others.

[hedgehog]

4. Not to mention the possibility of people getting hurt fighting over what does land safely

What? If it was your kid that was hungry and thirsty, don't you think you'd be out there doing your best to grab some food and water?

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. Early distribution will be more than just a pain

security wise. Not kidding here, this is why the Marines are coming

[gateley]

5. Delete. hedgehog said what I said, but much better.

[Bigmack]

6. Wasn't in supply...

or air, but I saw some c-130s do pallet slide-outs just above an airfield. Pallets slid for a bunch! How about that kind of thing at the end of the runway in P au P?

Hard for me to believe the military hasn't planned some for this kind of eventuality.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. People are talknig of doing these drops in the hard to reach

sections of the city... why the EMRATS are there... as a last case.

On the tarmac, why? They have a secured tarmac.

[14thColony]

27. You probably mean LAPES

Low-Altitude Parachute Extraction System, where drogue chutes deploy out the back of a very low-flying (practically landing) cargo aircraft and snatch the pallets out so that they only fall a short distance and then slide along the impact area (usually a runway). This takes aircrews that have been specially trained to do it, with the right equipment, and even then it's very very risky. The rapid changes to center of gravity in an aircraft that close to the ground can (and has) resulted in catastrophy as either the front or rear of the plane levers down into the ground, then it's all over. To my knowledge the USAF gave up on LAPES after a particularly horrific accident in the late 1980s. In fact the new(ish) C-17 was never even certified to do LAPSE when it was brought into the inventory.

[jmowreader]

28. Is the runway at Port au Prince still intact enough to do that?

You need a flat unbroken surface that's at least 1100 feet long to do a Low Altitude Parachute Extraction System operation. With the operation they're dealing with, they ideally would need twice the area--while they're pulling the first pallet off the landing zone the second one can be dropped. My opinion on LAPES for a relief operation into Port au Prince: drop perforated steel planking and whatever machines they'd need to lay the PSP on the broken runway, wait until the runway is patched (it doesn't take long) then just land C-17s normally.

[PacerLJ35]

33. The runway is fine for C-17/C-130 ops

LAPES is no longer used. Aircraft can combat offload pallets, but in general it's not done with frangible/fragile cargo like medical supplies, etc. Not to mention that a combat offload will spread pallets across a considerable stretch of ramp...it's better to save that ramp space for other aircraft and just use a forklift.

For what it's worth, PSP is generally not used anymore either. Braking action on PSP leaves much to be desired...it's fine for lighter aircraft but heavy aircraft can slide right off the end of a PSP landing zone.

[cliffordu]

9. And the hoarding and the fighting over the inital drops -

the gangs would try to control the distribution immediately.

No matter which way they slice this, they need an intervention of biblical proportions.

I'd go help if I thought I could.

That being said, getting water to those poor souls in any manner possible needs to start yesterday.

[PacerLJ35]

13. More details about why airdrops aren't feasible in Haiti

And dropping to a remote DZ would be unrealistic since you'd have the same problem...not enough equipment to get it off the DZ and to the places needed. Two primary ways of dropping supplies are CDS bundles and HE platforms. HE can get a lot of stuff on the ground quick but it requires complex rigging, low wind, and a fairly large DZ due to the chutes normally used (ie, G-11B chutes, etc). The rigging is complex because you need an extraction chute to pull the load out of the airplane, on top of the normal chutes.

CDS is cheaper and commonly used in places like Afghanistan...but Afghanistan is pretty sparsely populated. Most "real" CDS drops utilize a ring-slot chute and is actually referred to as HVCDS (Hi-Velocity CDS), but that kind of drop would probably smash/break most supplies being sent. Even a standard CDS bundle dropped with G-12/G-13 chutes is pretty heavy and could break things, and requires lower drop altitudes and a larger DZ to avoid off-DZ drops that could kill or injure people. A typical CDS bundle can weigh up to 2,200 lbs.

Combine a 2,200 lb bundle weight along with the fact that HE platforms can weigh as much as 42,000 lbs (dropped from a C-130), and you've still got a problem...no way of removing it from the DZ and getting it into town where it's needed. Dropping in town is a no-go from the start. You'd kill or hurt too many people, destroy more potentially unstable structures, and possibly lose loads in the rubble. No way any planning group would accept that kind of risk.

Next you've got issues with training. The USAF can fly airdrop crews, and a handful of other nations might be capable of doing it, but by and large most of the relief flights (particularly the civilian and third/second-world nations) can't safely execute airdrops, nor do they have the equipment on hand to do an airdrop.

People cite seeing airdrops to the troops in war zones, but keep in mind that the military uses airdrops when there's no other way to resupply. Using either a paved runway or a dirt LZ (landing zone) is ALWAYS preferable to airdrop, and if the military has access to a runway or an LZ, they will use it rather than resort to airdrops.

[Name removed]

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[apocalypsehow]

15. "We did, as training." Eh?

:shrug:

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. Well I am sorry the few disasters I helped managed never actually

needed choppers... beyond assessment that is.

Sorry to disappoint. We trained for a lot of stuff we never actually got to use.

[PacerLJ35]

17. Training loads aren't the same as real loads

Having a light training platform exit the airplane isn't anything like having a real HE platform, or a double-stick of 16 CDS bundles exit...most of the time, aircrews train using what's called an SATB...in simpler terms, it's a sandbag with a parachute attached to it.

[bridgit]

18. I'm gladder by the moment DU isn't engaged on the operational side...

And I haven't seen anyone suggest just kicking materiels out the tail of a slow moving cargo hold to splash haphazard and shatter their way over Haiti's random earthquake rubble somehow finding their way into needy hands - I do think it is calling for more forethought & precision

[PacerLJ35]

19. It does require planning and precision. But your picture is a pinnacle landing, not a true airdrop!

[bridgit]

26. I think the matter is being thinned between 'air drop' 'drop zone' and an area...

in which to set staples down, which is, after all, a form of drop zone - and if that is, firstly, a forward positioning to key points along the parimeter in that much of everything in-town is reduced and now an obstruction; but then working in toward where it is needed...then so be that. There are transports sitting on the tarmac at Travis waiting orders due to so much air traffic-in, and so little way to stage what has arrived. There does seem no doubt that any going will be slow certainly at first, but the Haitian people need supply lines in & out

[cliffordu]

20. I dunno why, but I'd bet the bastard flying that

thing learned how to fly it in Vietnam.

:shrug:

[PacerLJ35]

21. I doubt it

That would mean he's served nearly 40 years...

All Army pilots flying utility and cargo helicopters learn how to do pinnacle landings.

[cliffordu]

25. They've recruited lots of specialized folks and allowed

reservists and the National Guard to serve over there at my age and older and I just turned 58.

Of course I haven't seen one of those in a while and maybe I'm just nostalgic. Vintage aircraft, vintage pilot. Heh.

:shrug:

(I served with an air transport battalion. )

[blondeatlast]

29. The world would be perfect if DU/GD ran it.

If only we could agree on what color the sky generally is.

[RoyGBiv]

34. It's chartreuse, isn't it?

Looks chartreuse to me today. :)

[boppers]

35. Chartreuse is a conspiracy on the part of PNAC. eom

[jmowreader]

31. How to do aerial resupply. Screw airdrops.

I seem to remember Hispaniola has two nations on it--Haiti, which we are worried about, and the Dominican Republic, which we are not. Puerto Plata Air Base in the Dominican Republic has a 10,000 foot runway--plenty good for C-17s. The UH-60 Blackhawk and CH-47 Chinook both have lifting hooks and winches. Whatcha do is real simple: have riggers in the US--any base will do, but Hunter Army Airfield, GA, would probably be best because it's close to the area and has a LOT of riggers--prepare bundles for slingloading then load the bundles onto C-17s. Fly the bundles to Puerto Plata and slingload them into Haiti. This is much preferable to airdrop; a good Chinook pilot can put a bundle down in the middle of a city street if he has to.