FOOD DELIVERY IN HAITI

[jclalor 12]

Seems like a good idea to me.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8618-3445_162-6106337.html?assetTypeId=30&messageId=8918956

[quade 4]

60 Minutes devoted a big chunk of their reportage this week to Haiti.

In one of the stories the US commander in charge explained that parachuting in troops and supplies carries several large risks and he believes causes more problems than it solves. One of the bigger issues is that civilians rush the drops and riots ensue over ownership.

I've (fortunately) never been in a situation where my life has depended on supplies arriving nor have I ever been the person tasked with delivering them to potentially riotous crowds. I have to trust the word of the folks that do this for a living and cut them a lot of slack at this point.

I think it would be a good idea for everyone else to do so as well.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[jclalor 12]

Mabe people are not understanding the concept: No parachutes are used at all, just tens of thousands of single packages are dropped and they "flutter" to the ground. The food is then distibuted over a large area and therfore there would not be the riots that we are seeing now. This already has a proven track record in Bosnia and Afghanistan

http://www.congress.org/congressorg/bio/userletter/?letter_id=4536249971&content_dir=politicsol

(From: Science April, 1993)

MREs From Heaven
It sounded ludicrously simple to experts in aerial supply - so simple they hesitated to use it - but no, parachute food aid got the ultimate test last week when food packages began arriving free-fall on Bosnian sidewalks.

This unorthodox method for feeding war victims was suggested by former U.S. nuclear weapons researcher Bill Wattenburg, an ex-Lawrence Livermore physicist turned radio talk show host. No shrinking violet, Wattenburg contacted the National Security Council staff at the White House last month to pitch a notion he'd first hatched 2 years ago, when the United Starts was involved in Iraq. Back then, he'd told US Army officials that, instead of bundling food in huge, bulky packages and parachuting it to spots easily targeted by hostile soldiers, they'd be better off omitting the parachutes and scattering small, durable US. snack packs directly onto trails and fields. Being a scientist, he'd even performed the crucial experiments - dropping granola bars from high buildings and leaving them exposed to the weather. Eureka, They remained intact and edible.

Still, obdurate Army officials passed up their golden opportunity to scatter granola bars for hungry Iraqi Kurds. And that left Wattenburg to wait for his second hearing. This time around, it was only a few days after his call to the White House that U.S. Airplanes began using the new technique - which the military dubbed "fluttering" - over the hostage Bosnian town of Srebrenica.

Rather than granola bars; the Army is raining down surplus "Meals Ready to Eat," or MRE meteors," as one Clinton official calls them. These Army rations may be less tasty and more dangerous than candy bars when airborne, but, says one White House official on background, 'they're better than nothing," and certainly better than starving,


(San Francisco Chronicle - front page March, 1993)

Dropping food in Smaller Bites
The Pentagon has changed the way it is dropping supplies Bosnia, showering hundreds of thousands of individual food packets across area after weeks of shoving 1500-pound bundles out of the C-130 cargo planes.
The bundles had missed drop zones and drawn the unwanted attention and firepower of the well-armed Serbs to the Muslims the food was intended for.
Maverick Bay Area engineer Bill Wattenburg - known for his bizarre, yet effective Inventions - he persuaded the pentagon to initiate the change. Pentagon officials acknowledged that his idea was received with a fair amount of enthusiasm, although they said the change in relief supply strategy been "coincidental" because others had also broached the idea.
The Pentagon began using the new scattering method Saturday night when three US planes flying out of bases in Germany dropped 17 tons of military style TV dinners over the besieged northern Bosnian city of Srebrenica.

"You can shove a half a million of these things out the, back of a C-130," Wattenburg said. 'The people out there who are starving, they're shouting, 'Hallelujah, food's raining from the sky!' And they pick them up and eat them."
Wattenberg said he initially suggested to President Clinton and the military that U.S. forces drop millions of granola bars on the Muslim refugees, but Pentagon nutrition experts dismissed the bars in favor of MREs because the meals designed for combat troops pack more nutrition and energy into small packages. Each MRE packet contains three 1,300-calorie meals that can be eaten hot or cold.
In the packets are a basic meal, usually either meat, chicken, spaghetti or turkey loaf, as well as cheese and crackers, condiments, powdered coffee and sugar.


Danger of Pallets
One stumbling point of the 3 week-old U.S. relief program has been that the large pallets of food, airdropped from an altitude of about 10,000 feet, either miss the drop-zone, and end up in Serb hands or land where the huge white parachutes can be seen the next morning from Serb gun positions high up in the hills, Serb gunners reportedly fire on civilians trying to pick up the supplies.
But dropping individual packets in their 10-inch by 6-inch by 2-inch tough plastic wrappers makes recovery much easier.
"This scheme removes the danger aspect of parachute drop" Wattenburg said, "and allows immediate delivery to the most desperate - the children who starve before bulk supplies arrive weeks or months later."


How the Drop Works
Using the new distribution system, Air Force crews stack thousands of MRE's on the deck of the aircraft, near the rear loading ramp. When the plane is over its drop zone, the ramp is opened and the loosely bagged MRE's are pushed out. When the bags reach the end of their tethers, according to one Pentagon source, they break open and the MRE's drop to earth.
Wattenburg, 57, is a Chico engineer who has frequently acted as a consultant to the Air Force and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Two year ago, he made headlines when, working with Livermore Lab colleagues, he modified agricultural plows Into a 1,200 square-foot blanket of clanking chains and blades that, when lowed behind a helicopter, could be used to clear more than 500,000 mines left In the Kuwaiti desert after the Persian Gulf war.

[Andrewwhyte 1]

there are 9 million hungry people and they need more than one meal each. Dropping 1/2 a million units might still cause riots. 30 million or so units would be an enormous undertaking.

[CanuckInUSA 0]

Quote

Maybe people are not understanding the concept: No parachutes are used at all, just tens of thousands of single packages are dropped and they "flutter" to the ground.

Geez how light are these packages you are speaking of? Even freeze dried food has some weight to it. It's one thing for a whuffo to be calling for things to be dropped from the sky, but you would think a skydiver would be aware of the consequences of gravity.

There is no easy answer to helping the people of Haiti right now.
Let the military and the other aid agencies do their jobs.

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[billvon 3,176]

>Geez how light are these packages you are speaking of?

They can be arbitrarily light. Heck, you could drop millions of 60 gram (2 ounce) granola bars. Put 8 ounces of water in a plastic gallon jug and drop 100,000 of them.

>It's one thing for a whuffo to be calling for things to be dropped from
>the sky, but you would think a skydiver would be aware of the
>consequences of gravity.

We also know about drag, though - which is why we regularly cut away heavy (5-20 pound) parachutes over populated areas without worrying that they will crush the skull of some hapless bystander.

[shropshire 0]

Then drop Coke Light

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[CanuckInUSA 0]

Yes a canopy has a rather large surface area that can cause drag. Food Packets do not have the same surface area. But since some people here are all in favor of dropping things from the sky, do you care where they land? Do you want these packets of food landing in and around areas where buildings have collapsed? Do you want people scrounging through the rubble for their granola bars? I am no Haiti expert, but I understand Haiti has a very rugged hilly landscape. Not exactly the ideal terrain for air drops. Oh I know, the solution is so easy isn't it. Just gather all of Haiti's population into one of their big open flat fields and drop the granola bars to them there. But don't be surprised when hell can break loose and people are trampled to death.

No I don't have all the solutions, heck I am not even trying to offer any ... except:
I say let the military and aid agencies do their jobs.

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[billvon 3,176]

> But since some people here are all in favor of dropping things from the
>sky, do you care where they land?

Yep.

> Do you want these packets of food landing in and around areas where
>buildings have collapsed?

If the alternative choice is death for them and their families through starvation - yes.

>But don't be surprised when hell can break loose and people are
>trampled to death.

When food is spread over a two mile long swath, the odds of tramplings go way down. When all the food is in the back of one truck - you can get riots and tramplings.

>I say let the military and aid agencies do their jobs.

Agreed.

[jclalor 12]

Quote

Quote

there are 9 million hungry people and they need more than one meal each. Dropping 1/2 a million units might still cause riots. 30 million or so units would be an enormous undertaking.

9 million people and how many have been fed in a week?

It worked in Bosnia and Afghanistan, This method would work in the more densly populated areas. The US air force thought it was great .Watching the riots now on TV and that does not seem to be working out very well for anyone except for the thugs. No need for the Haiti airport as they could fly straight from the US.

[jclalor 12]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCxwprZekpM


Why can't this be done in Haiti?

[rhys 0]

It can, and it can be done from a much lower altitude as it is not a warzone...


...yet!

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, then the world will see peace." - 'Jimi' Hendrix

[rushmc 23]

Quote

It can, and it can be done from a much lower altitude as it is not a warzone...


...yet!

As reported on CBS last night

The US military has built a new air control tower. Flights have now increased to 120 per day up from 30 flights landing a day. Not bad for one air strip. Progress?

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[rhys 0]

Quote

The US military has built a new air control tower. Flights have now increased to 120 per day up from 30 flights landing a day. Not bad for one air strip. Progress?

I sure hope that progress continues, there are millions of desparate people out there, also lots of support and supplies, logistics is the key to success, only time will tell what happens.

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, then the world will see peace." - 'Jimi' Hendrix

[rushmc 23]

Quote

Quote

The US military has built a new air control tower. Flights have now increased to 120 per day up from 30 flights landing a day. Not bad for one air strip. Progress?

I sure hope that progress continues, there are millions of desparate people out there, also lots of support and supplies, logistics is the key to success, only time will tell what happens.

+1

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[futuredivot 0]

I have to say that I am very proud of my general aviation family for the response they've been putting together. Despite the horrible couple of years we've had financially, guys are stepping up to ferry supplies in. Usually at significant personal expense. Our own Freddie Cabanas (WFFC Pitts pilot) just finished up a run. Way to go!

You are only as strong as the prey you devour

[rushmc 23]

Quote

I have to say that I am very proud of my general aviation family for the response they've been putting together. Despite the horrible couple of years we've had financially, guys are stepping up to ferry supplies in. Usually at significant personal expense. Our own Freddie Cabanas (WFFC Pitts pilot) just finished up a run. Way to go!

they have a lot to be proud of. (as do all those helping) and they can fully ignore the bs from those gripers we have seen even on this site.

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[rehmwa 2]

Quote

The US military has built a new air control tower. Flights have now increased to 120 per day up from 30 flights landing a day. Not bad for one air strip. Progress?

RIGGGHHHTT

"Progress" towards evil US imperialism?

Unless, of course, the new tower was immediately turned over to the UN, or Cuba. Either way

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[rushmc 23]

Quote

Quote

The US military has built a new air control tower. Flights have now increased to 120 per day up from 30 flights landing a day. Not bad for one air strip. Progress?

RIGGGHHHTT

"Progress" towards evil US imperialism?

Unless, of course, the new tower was immediately turned over to the UN, or Cuba. Either way

blah blah blah



guys like you are just plain funny

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln