Colonel Allardice said the crews dropped 35,000 Humanitarian Daily Rations, bright yellow individual meal packets. The drops took place in eastern and southern Afghanistan.
The planes flew at high altitude for the drops. No parachutes were
used. Instead, the meal packets are designed to flutter to the ground.
"On board the C-17s we had 42 of what we called TRIAD containers that stands for tri-wall air delivery system," explained Colonel Allardice. "These TRIAD containers each contain a large portion of the HDRs, the Humanitarian Daily Rations. When we get to the drop zone, the C-17 depressurizes and then as we get to the precise point, the loadmaster flips a switch which releases the TRIAD containers out the back of the plane. The TRIAD containers are like a real big refrigerator. As they exit, the ends pop off and all the supplies drop out and they establish a dispersal pattern approximately one mile wide and three miles long [1.6 km by 4.8 km]."
Drop the stuff loose, and avoid thugs, and lazy UN troops... saw a parachute drop on ABC ... crew came back 3 hours later ... UN troops had not done anything. When questioned they said they would do it after they had their lunch. Air drop (talk) 19:50, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
