Quote Originally Posted by vinj View Post
Just this morning on the way to work, my wife commented that if we had a helicopter, we would have indeed dropped off relief goods/medication at isolated towns if we could. It got me thinking on how would you logistically support air drops at that area. If you assess it, these are my thoughts on why there were limitations to doing airdrops immediately after the typhoon (as a lot of people are saying should have been done):
- the payload of the helicopters are miniscule to the requirements of each and every town (look at the number of goods they could carry versus the people waiting). that's why the efforts were put to establishing the routes to streamline relief efforts. You could also see that the gunner probably had to stay at his post just to make sure people keep the order as they unload goods.
- AVgas is probably limited in the immediate disaster areas so air time is limited as well (planes would have to gas up in Manila or Cebu; too far for the helos to travel to and from constantly).
- we only have so many helicopters and they are likewise used to support other areas of the archipelago (on a side note, to me the HUEY will always be the one of the legendary badass helos of all time given they were workhorses from the Vietnam war era to this very day).

My observations could be right or wrong but at the end of the day, these are the hard lessons we all are learning and have to prepare for in the future.
Kunti lang pwede karga ng helicopter plus kung drop mo lang yan eh di madidistribute ng maayos yan, dahil kukunin ng mga tarantado yan at ibebenta sa kapwa nila biktima, or pwede ring magka gulo lang dahil mag aagawan.

My inanaak is a HUEY Helicopter pilot na nasa relief operation ngayon, di daw ganon ka simple sa laki at sa dami ng napinsala ng bagyo. Hirap daw dahil kagagaling lang nila ng Zamboanga eh eto nanaman.