I suppose this will be off the new cycle by the end of the week

[james_davis_nicoll]

The Geneva-based Doctors Without Borders said bluntly: "There is little sign of significant aid distribution."

The aid group complained of skewed priorities and a supply bottleneck at the U.S.-controlled airport. Doctors Without Borders spokesman Jason Cone said the U.S. military needed "to be clear on its prioritization of medical supplies and equipment."

[Poll #1513195]

Comments

Re: Quoting the article

[doug-palmer.livejournal.com]

I would have thought that the unloading time for supplies would dwarf both the extra time for refuelling or loading passengers.

Re: Quoting the article

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

Why would the planes be carrying supplies out of Haiti?

Re: Quoting the article

[doug-palmer.livejournal.com]

Eh?

1. Plane lands
2. Plane unloads supplies
3. Plane loads enough fuel to fly empty
4. Plane loads the extra amount of fuel for passengers
5. Plane loads passengers
6. Plane takes off

Turn-around time is 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 Assuming that this all happens in sequence, I would have thought that 2 + 3 >> 4 + 5.

Re: Quoting the article

[errolwi.livejournal.com]

Very good post on airfield practicalities at
http://taylorempireairways.com/2010/01/mtpp-airfield-flow-and-relief-operations/

An important improvement has been requiring arriving aircraft to not need refueling.

Re: Quoting the article

[doug-palmer.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Very interesting read.

Re: Quoting the article

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

There's an optimum number of airplanes that can use an airport at any one time - and by "use" I mean "be in the airport" (refueling, loading, unloading, whatever) AND "land at" AND "be coming into land" AND "take off from" AND "be in the stack" (that is, circle around the airport waiting for an OK from the AT people to give you a landing slot). That optimum is affected by the sophistication of the ATC systems at the airport, the number of runways and their conditions, the amount of fuel each airplane is carrying, the number of planes that are coming in and need to land, the number of planes that need to take off AND the number of planes taking up space in an area where they can readily be taxi'd to and from after landing and prior to take off.

now the trouble is that of the variables that affect that optimum number, the turn around that each plane has, the time each planes spends taking up the finite storage space the airports have for planes while they're being refueled and un/loaded, has a non-linear affect on all the other variables and thus decreases the optimum number of planes the airport can handle dramatically.

And what happens when you exceed that optimum number is two-fold: First of all the effeciency of the entire airport decreases, because if you end up with planes on the ground longer, you could end up with essentially a traffic-jam of planes waiting to be un/loaded and then take off again, this then means that as the airport has no space for more airplanes, the ones coming in have to circle about using fuel. If they use up too much fuel they will then need to refuel to get out of the airport, and eventually the airplanes will need to be physically pushed out of the way into a ditch when the fuel all runs out as well as each plane now taking to do a turn around and so the effect of small initial delays is a positive feedback loop that holds up everything else at the airport. And the net effect is that less supplies get into Haiti and so people who wouldn't have died, end up dying.

The other side effect of this is that the only real way to compensate for such hold ups is for the ground crews to increase their work rate. but note that they'[re already working as quickly as possible, and probably cutting corners on the all the safety regulations that can reasonably be put off (deferring safety inspections until after they've taken off and landed again at their home bases, decreasing the amount of airspace each plane is given when taking up a holding pattern etc...) so the only way to increase the rate at which the ground crews work is to cut the safety regs that are kind of important and hope that nothing goes drastically wrong.
So as the work rate increases, so to does the accident rate, and if a plane crashes during take off or landing, or planes collide in the air, or the fuel goes up the airport could become nearly unusable, and people die who would not otherwise have died.

Note also that 1, Haiti is not an island, so it is physically possible (if deeply impractical) for the repatriatable people to just walk ride a donkey or catch a lift to the dominican republic if they could stand the trek, and 2, THERE ARE FUCKING CRUISE LINERS JUST OFF SHORE ffs. Boats that are already going to the US with considerable facilities that could stand having the americans on board with no real effect on the entire aid operation vs. having a negative effect on the entire aid operation during the critical early stages of the response. Which is best?