11/19/2013: When doing disaster relief, professionals will tell you that time is your most precious commodity.
The Osprey-KC-130J pairing bought time for the current HA/DR mission.
By having the pairing, the USMC team was able to move in rapidly and prepare for the insertion of additional forces and aide teams.
How much is 3-5 days of additional time worth in putting in motion a relief effort?
Major A. “Papi” Guzman took the following pictures.
[slidepress gallery=’getting-the-initial-job-done’]
According to Lt. Col. Brown, the CO of VMM-262, the “Flying Tigers, Guzman is his assistant operations officer and the two them flew lead and wing together interchangeably for the 1st three days.
According to Major Guzman: These pictures are from Homonhong Island.
After we landed, I spoke with the Mayor and he handed me a note to pass on to the PAF in Tacloban. I told him there was a choke point of aircraft/supplies there and I only had two crew chiefs.
He offered to help, so I loaded the aircraft with 6 of his strongest along with a mother and infant that were stranded.
We proceeded directly to Tacloban 60 miles away, we then dropped off the family to Tacloban and returned with needed tarps, blankets and rice.
We did the 120 mile round trip plus the loading assistance and this took me less than an hour although done in a congested airfield apron.There is no way any other aircraft could have done that.