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The Humanitarian Airline

Service Missions

Mini Clinics

Resource Center

Inoculation Programs

Relieving Hunger

Irrigating the World

Education Programs

Eradication of Aids

Immediate Response

“On-Call” Capability

Typical Reponse

CRAF vs Wings

The creation of a worldwide “Humanitarian Airline” remains the ultimate goal of Wings World Wide – The Air Medical Foundation. With the diversity of varied configurations, Wings can provide both a passenger and/ or cargo transportation capability for NGOs, government agencies and worldwide relief institutions in carrying out medical, educational and infrastructure missions. This capability allows for both the humanitarian service provider and their equipment to arrive in one flight without having to pre-position equipment with an addition transport movement and at a greater cost.

Wings can provide for onboard medical care and transportation of non-ambulatory patents, or deploy ground medical units in support of pre-planned medical or dental missions.

Wings’ aircraft can be configured to accommodate large structures and type specific equipment for worldwide projects. Ground support and forward support transports can accompany the initial movement in order to move NGO personnel and equipment forward to the humanitarian service site.

Wings’ immediate mobilization capability allows for NGOs and / or equipment to arrive at a disaster site within hours instead of days. It allows for this life saving equipment and aid to be on site to affect maximal use.

With multiple aircraft, NGOs can provide humanitarian service to multiple locations at one time or chain a series of stops to provide around the world service in one continual mission. No matter where the mission is, additional aircraft from the Foundation can provide for continual re-supply and support.

Finally, mission costs are substantially reduced by commingling assets of multiple NGOs, sharing transportation costs and by having a specific transportation platform set purposefully aside for humanitarian missions, providing an “at cost” service instead of using a vendor profit economy.

Humanitarian Service Missions

Wings World Wide – The Air Medical Foundation has a number of humanitarian missions available to NGOs and the general volunteer public. Wings’ efforts are to coordinate volunteers with existing humanitarian organizations in fulfilling unique rolls in medical, dental and hygiene service throughout the world.

Humanitarian missions can range from one week to many months, depending upon the desires of the volunteer and the needs of the specific area. Wings makes a concerted effort to make these service missions seamless, so that the volunteer can leave at an appointed time and return on an appointed date. The cost for each mission is different depending upon time and distance, borne by the volunteer or NGO. Generally the cost of each mission is the actual mission project plus airfare. Consumables and mission supplies can be obtained through fundraisers, donations and/or work projects. Travel, lodging and local transportation at the site are provided. Meals are provided when volunteers are actually in clinic, in the field. Some meals are the responsibility of the volunteer. Ideally, the volunteer leaves home with a schedule and itinerary and is guided along the way by a team leader. No incredible amount of travel experience is required. Wings tries to make travel “seamless”.

Depending upon the locale, some inoculation or altitude preparation will be required. Generally, at the most, there is no more than a few months accommodation for this need.

These are not vacation packages! This is real work in a “real need” environment. Travel to the destination can take more than a day. Travel in the local mission site may take hours. Traversing high altitude passes on narrow roads is not uncommon. Land vehicles can range from a two seat motorcycle cab to a 40 passenger bus. Wings utilizes its own clinic facility when available, but village visits may find the clinic being anything from just a dirt floor hut, to available school classrooms, to spare hospital rooms. Volunteers ideally stay in local hotels with Wings making a great effort provide the best lodging accommodations available, which can range from a dormitory environment to 3 Star type hotels. All of these conditions are known well in advance of the humanitarian mission.

Wings can accommodate any volunteers who wish to participate. You do not have to be a medical, dental or hygiene professional. However, you must be willing to work in that environment. Tasks can range fro giving a hygiene class, to assisting medical professionals, to sterilization of equipment and taking care of the patient flow.

All volunteers are encouraged to consult with their tax advisor as to the tax deductible expenses of such missions as they relate to the volunteer.

Current ongoing humanitarian service missions are available to Peru, Ecuador, Jamaica, Uruguay, Mexico and Israel. Future sites include Nepal, China, islands of the South Pacific and the Middle East as well as Asia. Other locations are available as indicated at the link:

http://www.box.net/shared/kc94f8zmar

International Mini Clinics

A primary goal of Wings World Wide in support of international humanitarian needs is to provide hygiene as well as medical and dental care for those who have none available. Volunteers can treat hundreds during just one week service missions. They can utilize the “international mini clinics” as they are made available, taking their professional associates, spouse and/or family in giving humanitarian service. Volunteers can serve for as little as a week or up to months as their schedule permits.

Wings World Wide, with the cooperation of other established NGOs, has designed a “mini clinic” which is portable in construction, easily transportable in our cargo aircraft and takes but hours to set up. Either by using these portable structures, or by rehabilitating existing structures, Wings can operate in any area of the world, re-supplying medical teams, supplies and pharmaceuticals on a monthly schedule utilizing the Wings aircraft fleet. These structures can become a permanent fixture of the host country.

These portable facilities are constructed with water and wiring systems already built into the walls. They can be built as large as 60 x 60 sq. ft. Wings can also rehabilitate existing structures or assist in building new construction. The goal is to provide people who would normally not have access to hygiene, medical and dental care, a facility where they can readily receive care.

Wings can operate these independently, however ideally Wings desires to have partnerships in host countries and utilize volunteer medical and dental professionals to assist indigenous professionals. These mini clinics can provide for food and housing for inserted medical teams, as well as a reception room, pharmacy, examination room and trauma room capabilities. Security will be housed on site.

Currently, Wings has ongoing relations, operations and partnerships in a number of countries, including Peru, Ecuador, Israel, Honduras, Nepal and Jamaica and continues to expand operations and staff medical and dental expeditions in various locations throughout the world. Cooperative efforts between existing NGOs who have established themselves in particular countries make this an ideal humanitarian service environment.

Wings will provide construction teams to rehabilitate existing structures to the same capabilities as portable units. Both units will be provided for by the Wings World Wide - Humanitarian Resource Center with upgraded medical equipment and supplies.

The mission of these mini clinics is to give support to existing medical and dental services and provide for those who currently have no medical support at all. By operating this type of care and volunteer service, an incalculable amount of goodwill is given, friendships and trust are gained, and humanitarian service is provided.

Serving “mini missions” is a great way to teach a new generation about humanitarian service. Families can achieve a cultural experience as well as serving as compassionate ambassadors of goodwill. These are life changing and life altering experiences for all ages, for both the recipient and the caregiver.

Wings Humanitarian Resource Center

Wings has incorporated into its design the Wings World Wide – Humanitarian Resource Center. This center can provide for not only the accumulating of relief aid, assembly of relief pallets and act as an initial distribution center, but also provide a meeting ground for NGOs and government representatives to meet, discuss, coordinate, plan and develop new and improved technologies for disaster and humanitarian relief programs.

There needs be a center clearinghouse to single out ideas and develop initiatives to provide for the most comprehensive and coordinated response efforts. This Center can be available to all, teaching NGOs how to work together instead of being in completion.

Supporting Worldwide Inoculation Programs

Moving personnel, pharmaceuticals and equipment around the world is costly, generally at least twice or more than that of using Wings. Utilizing Wings’ humanitarian airline allows for a continual supply chain that brings the type specific medicine to any area of the world for specific inoculation needs. Setting up “mini clinics” in the affected country allows for a base of operations to permanently exist in a hub and spoke distribution operation. Forward servicing ground vehicles can also be added to the mix in order to get the widest possible area of coverage. Constant re-supply and rotating volunteers reduces gaps in areas where a virus can lay dormant or vast areas need to be covered. How much better it would be if the excessive transportation costs could be used to purchase more medicine.

Relieving Hunger

It has never been an issue of obtaining the necessary food supplements to feed the hungry throughout the world. The continuing obstacle has always been providing for the continual transportation and distribution of these commodities. The cost of such commercial transport is generally over twice what it would cost for Wings to provide. Utilizing Wings’ “humanitarian airline”, the cost is considerably reduced and a high delivery level can be maintained. Reduced cost means that more funds can be directed towards food supplies which is what the real issue is, isn’t it?

Irrigating the World

Numerous NGOs and government projects direct their efforts towards providing water, by way of wells, purification or containment in arid areas of the world. Movement of equipment and supplies to keep these projects ongoing requires a continuous, cost effective and reliable transportation platform. With Wings “humanitarian airline” this can be accomplished monthly, delivering more equipment at a far reduced cost than ever before by combining the delivery of these materials with medical and food aid.

Education Programs

Educating the world in hygiene, land usage and water flow control can seriously reduce disease and hunger. Educating the third world population in proper land management can change the health and living standards of millions throughout the world. Utilizing Wings “humanitarian airlines” allows for millions to learn effective crop rotation, water control, waste management and land usage. For most volunteers it is not a matter of desire, but cost and time. With scheduled and pre-planned missions, this effort can be magnified.

In Support of the Eradication of Aids

14 August 2006, San Francisco Chronicle

The world’s most generous contributor to the eradication of HIV-Aids, Bill Gates, has emphasized that for now, prevention of the disease far outweighs the cure. Currently, there are 39 million people living with the HIV-Aids virus. Thus far, the various cocktails used in treating the disease have up to four drugs, and yet they show no more positive a result than cocktails with two drugs. Each therapy costs about $11,000.00 per person. Because of the ineffective cost of treating the disease, the pendulum of cure has swung back to prevention. Gates has donated over $500 million to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. “The harsh mathematics of this epidemic proves that prevention is essential to expanding treatment. Treatment without prevention is simply unsustainable,” Bill Gates said. $1.5 billion is the current total of all contributions to finding a cure for AIDS. Thus, the $13 billion per year cost in AIDS drugs, given to all those currently infected with the disease, will not hold the infection in check.

“When you extrapolate five to 10 years, you quickly see that there is no feasible way to do what morality requires - treat everyone with HIV - unless we dramatically reduce the number of new infections,” Gates said. “The key to renewing prevention efforts,” Gates insists, “is to find new technologies that help women ward off infection. This can be done by taking AIDS drugs in lower doses to prevent HIV in uninfected people, or the use of an effective microbicide – a lotion gel that kills the virus in the vagina.” Even this, however, requires investigation, trials and remains to be a proven course of action.

In Sub Saharan Africa, young women under 25 are three times more likely to be infected with AIDS than men. 60% of adults in this area are now living with AIDS. Unfortunately, women sometimes have little say in whether or not to have safe sex with their male partners according to the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS. This means that the infections will continue and the population will continue to spread the disease.

Gates noted that abstinence “is not often an option for poor women and girls.” Proven prevention methods of clean needles, condoms, education and testing has thus far proven to be a failure, because they have not been made widely available. An increased effort and greater saturation of these methods must be made to keep the disease from growing.

Over $160 million was spent in 2005 toward finding a medical cure for the disease and many would like to see it doubled. “Large scale trials of microbicide candidates can cost up to $100 million or more per year and take years to complete, and these are only the trials.” Although microbicide research clinics say that more money will make the trials go faster, past history does not indicate this to be so. Thus far we are no closer now than in years past. We have only increased the drugs in the cocktail and increasing the number of drugs has made little change in the outcome. In the US alone, education and prevention has done more to stop the spread of AIDS than any medicine. Stephen Lewis, Special UN Ambassador for HIV in Africa, says, “Many are dying now and some say it will take generations to change male sexual behavior in Africa to bring about equal treatment or women.” “The women are dying now. I don’t think a microbicide can be discovered soon enough.”

Building upon this hypothesis, it can be certain that a medical prevention is years and over a billion dollars away. Assuming that a medical prevention was found it would take one pill per person on an ongoing basis and it would have to be compounded over years, in an inverse pyramid, to cover all of Africa.

There can be no question that education, abstinence, clean needles and condoms are the immediate tools available and the only known method for reducing the virus. Person to person contact is what spreads the virus and only people to people interaction; prevention through the instruction of sexual abstinence, hygiene and sexual education, as well as the mass distribution of medicines will allow containment of the virus until a cure can be found.

Wings World Wide – The Air Medical Foundation continues to address this issue with the desire to create “international mini clinics” throughout the African continent. These clinics will be placed 100 miles apart, allowing for all inhabitants to gain access in just one day’s walk. In a hub and spoke concept, these clinics will be supplied and continually re-supplied each month with pharmaceuticals and medical supplies. Volunteer medical professionals can assist local doctors in rendering humanitarian medical, dental, hygiene and AIDS preventative instruction by serving “mini missions”, not just once, but on an ongoing basis.

By combining humanitarian dental and medical missions and the transport of medical supplies along with AIDS preventive programs, cost of care and treatment is considerably reduced while a wider area of coverage is obtained. Current transport costs alone can be reduced by 60%. Continued education of the disease, instruction on how to prevent it and distribution of preventative treatment measures can greatly reduce the numbers of infected individuals, which will help keep the disease in check until a cure can be found.

Immediate Response Operations

A key element in any type of response is availability, flexibility and economics. Wings “humanitarian airline” design meets these needs and allows governments and NGOs to have a transportation platform available immediately and at a cost effective level. So many times during disaster, aid sits on tarmacs awaiting commercial carriers to be funded while the victims of disasters await relief. Having Wings transport platform available saves time, a departure within hours, not days or weeks. Economically it costs Wings approximately 60% less than utilizing commercial carriers. Wings aircraft are more flexible in capacity and capability, which is not always an option with commercial carriers.

Sample “On-Call” Capability

There really isn’t a comparative shopping to match Wings’ capability:

Typical Response Scenarios

Mass Evacuation

The United States has and will have a need to evacuate over 200 citizens serving abroad from various countries in turmoil where American citizens are found to be in harm’s way due to disaster or political uprising.

The current typical response would be to requisition assets from the DoD, which is always as successful as the availability of current use assets in existence. To be effectively responsive one must assume that there is no other conflict greater and that assets are not deployed already elsewhere for whatever reason, just to have the aircraft procured and in place to start the mission. However, if an ongoing conflict is in place, it must be expected that military assets are also being called into service for troop and equipment movement elsewhere and the time to respond is delayed. If DoD assets are not available, then CRAF assets and/or charter assets must be requisitioned and repositioned for service. Mobilizing CRAF assets can take up to 48 hours or more. Secondly, the aircraft must be configured properly or this time frame is lengthened further. Likely, some sort of configuration will be required. DoD will typically use tanker assets, IF AVAILABLE, and positioning of these will take additional time and coordination. Lastly, if more than one aircraft is required, then this scenario is compounded with locating, configuring, and positioning of multiple aircraft. Further complicating matters are the typical evacuation scenarios of tropical gulf storms, which occur each year, but with no predictable path or landfall date and time. This puts the military asset base on standby, at great cost and with no assurance of ever being used. This can cost over $1,000,000 per day. While no value can be placed on the possible loss of life, loss of time can cost lives and yet there is a more cost effect way to prepare and respond, one more efficient and capable. With days and weeks possibly required for the response, the cost can soar into the tens of millions of dollars just to remain prepared, whether any response is actually undertaken or not. Past history has indicated that response assets have been moved into place and then disposed of after not being used, at a cost of over $60 million per year.

This Foundation can be mobilized with the initial phone call. The three hour launch window allows for the type-specific package to be loaded and the necessary staff to assemble. The aircraft can then be deployed and enroute to the evacuation site in the fourth hour, or deploying and landing in a prepositioned place to await the actual land fall of a storm before actually entering into the known disaster site. Wings can make two stops to augment responders. This will more than likely be required in order for a full contingent of responders to be assembled. The aircraft can adjust to time and place of employment within hours instead of days. Additionally, the first aircraft can accommodate all 200 evacuees and with seats and litters for the movement of the critically injured. If a separate containment facility is required, it can be carried on the same aircraft or in the follow-on aircraft. Alone or in tandem, these aircraft can operate indefinitely in the area of operation. Thus, the end result is a mission response in a matter of hours with the capability of the evolution to carry on continuously, and at a significant reduced cost.

Domestic Terrorism Response

There will be another 9/11 type terrorist activity. This is fact, not “if”, but “when”! With possible damage to not only life, but infrastructure, this is as devastating as it gets and the need for additional emergency aid, equipment, and personnel will be required immediately and be ongoing.

Once again, the current typical response would be to requisition assets from the DoD, TRANSCOM with the same degree of anticipated success. With DoD assets available or not, whether CRAF assets and/or charter assets are used or not used, there must be a requisitioning and repositioning of the aircraft for service. Then again, the aircraft must be configured properly. Lastly, if more than one aircraft is required, then this scenario is compounded with locating, configuring, and positioning of these additional aircraft. Finally and again, the time can be up to 72 hours to acquire the first aircraft alone. In the past, the Government has paid up to $1,000,000 per day, per aircraft, to procure, prepare and respond. While this preparation is being worked out, lives are being lost. Currently, USAR, DMAT, and IMSURT teams must mobilize and transport via ground conveyance. Their people and equipment have to be gathered and transported. This evolution alone can take up to 24 hours and it can be estimated to take up to 72 hours just to get to the disaster site, if a viable route can be found. It is even more likely than not, as in Katrina, they will be unable to get to the disaster site because of the devastation to highway infrastructure.

Wings can be mobilized with an initial phone call and be airborne in a three-hour launch window, the three-hour launch window which allows for the type-specific response package to be loaded and the necessary staff to be assembled. A completely separate pre-packaged USAR, IMSURT, and DMAT response package can be co-located with the aircraft and loaded within this timeframe. The actual regional gear for these teams is then allowed to be left at home-base, to be used by those members who did not deploy in the event that another disaster befalls their local area. Though not assuming that additional packages may be required, regional packages can initially stay in their own region. The aircraft then airborne in the fourth hour have the capability of stopping twice or more enroute to pick up DMAT, USAR, and or IMSURT augmented personnel to assure the arrival of one or more complete teams. With a 45-minute turnaround at each stop, with three stops, employment in the domestic operational area can be in as little as 12 hours. Once again, this unit can function independently for up to five days, and indefinitely with re-supply. Additionally, the first aircraft can act to replace hospital services that are no longer available in the disaster area. Deployable ground units can accept over 400 triage patients per day, while the aircraft can support critical surgical care. Re-supply every four days with new personnel and medical supplies can be ongoing indefinitely. The end result is a medical mission on site within 12 hours and at a vastly reduced cost.

CRAF vs Wings in support of DHS / FEMA, HHS and DoD

Created and enacted by Congress this unique and significant part on the nation’s mobility resource has always been the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF). Selected aircraft from the U.S. airlines, contractually committed to CRAF, support Department of Defense airlift requirements in emergencies when the need for airlift exceeds the capability of military aircraft. There have been up to 35 carriers with over 657 aircraft in the program. CRAF is a DoD program.

There are three main segments in CRAF: international, national and aero-medical evacuation. The international segment is further divided into long-range and short-range sections and the national segment is divided into the domestic and Alaskan sections. Assignment of aircraft to a segment depends on the nature of the requirement and the performance of the aircraft. Passenger and cargo aircraft make up the long-range international section for transoceanic operations.

Aero-medical evacuation segment assists in the evacuation of casualties from operational theaters to hospitals in the United States. These aircraft are also used to return medical supplies and personnel to the theater of operations. Kits containing litter stanchions, litters and other aero-medical equipment are used to convert civilian aircraft into air ambulances.

CRAF participants receive enumeration via a point system which allows them to bid on government contracts in peace time. They may also be awarded contracts for just being a part of CRAF to fill the void in the military airlift capability. These contracts allow for the airlines to receive funding that they may use in any manner, but they must maintain their aircraft fleet in a state of readiness. This policy has proven to be effective and beneficial to both parties. The government has a source of aircraft and the airlines have a source of revenue.

To join CRAF, carriers must maintain a minimum long-range international fleet commitment level of 30% passenger and 15% for cargo. The aircraft must be U.S. registered and capable of at least a 3500 nautical mile range and 10 hour per day usage. Short range aircraft must be capable of over water flight with a 1500 mile range and carry 75 passengers or 32,000 lbs. of freight. There must be four complete qualified crews for each aircraft. CRAF aircraft must have demonstrated for at least one year the ability to perform in a comparable service for one year prior to becoming a CRAF fleet aircraft provider.

Safety is paramount in CRAF. Numerous procedures are in effect to afford the highest level of safety for DoD passengers. Carriers must be FAA certified and meet the standards of FAA Part 121 commercial flight operations.

There are three stages in augmenting the CRAF fleet. To augment the CRAF fleet into the military environment takes the direction of TRANSCOM, under the direction of the Secretary of Defense. When augmented, CRAF must have their aircraft ready between 24 and 48 hours.

The usage of CRAF aircraft takes time. During disasters time is not a luxury. The general movement of aircraft by TRANSCOM, who governs the usage of the CRAF fleet, is operated under the request and procurement mode. This means that a request for aircraft is made and the procurement takes time. It can take days to bring the aircraft under TRANSCOM control and up to a week to actually use the aircraft. Aircraft taken out of commercial service may require a reconfiguration. This could result in an international aircraft movement just to begin the retrofit. In the shortest time frame this can take from a day or more up to two days.

Wings World Wide – The Air Medical Foundation is not a commercial business and is not in competition with CRAF or its affiliate commercial airlines. Wings does not desire points for operation as it does not desire to compete for government contracts. Wings’ only goal is fill the void between the disaster event request and actual operation of the CRAF fleet, to allow the government a reliable, economical and “immediate response” capability. Wings can also fill the void of providing humanitarian assistance for DoS international relief missions when such operations are “immediate” and temporary.

At any time, with appropriate waivers from TRANSCOM, DoD or Congress, Wings is available for any disaster or humanitarian mission.

TRANSCOM has made it clear that they cannot respond to the “immediate” needs of DHS (FEMA) or HHS either domestically or internationally. Many inside TRANSCOM would like to see Wings designated as the airline of The Department of Homeland Security and HHS. DHS / FEMA and HHS do not operate under the same guidelines as DoD. To this advantage, Wings under DHS or HHS would be available within hours instead of “CRAF days” and in a configuration that fits the response required. Wings can operate in the same field environment as DoD, with the same professionalism, FAA requirements in maintenance and aircrew training as CRAF, but without the time, congressional and geographic constraints which exist in the CRAF program.

None of Wings capabilities interferes with the CRAF program, competes commercially with CRAF commercial carriers or compromises the financial arrangement between the government and CRAF participants. In fact, it enhances DHS and HHS’s ability to respond immediately and relieves CRAF participants from short term disruption of regular service while preparing for the long term obligation that would likely occur.

Thus, Wings, operating under DHS / FEMA, HHS or by waiver of Congress to be part of CRAF under TRANSCOM, or both as an augmented asset, can be more responsive in time and deployment, more economical in terms of funding, usage and maintenance, and more effective in mission construction and capability.

Conclusion

The total package that Wings provides covers the needs of both the government and NGO sectors in responding to disasters and delivering humanitarian service. There is absolutely no other capability in existence or in planning that can accomplish immediate response missions as can Wings World Wide – The Air Medical Foundation. There is nothing more responsive to humanitarian service, in capability or flexibility, nor is there currently anything available to the NGO sector for continuous operational use.

The cost structure of utilizing Wings as an “immediate” response platform or for pre-planned humanitarian missions is considerably less than what would be expended for commercial air services. Aircraft configuration and mission planning can be type specific for each NGO whether the Foundation assets are used by one NGO alone or commingled with multiple NGOs. The world has changed; airline cost structures have risen and complimentary or reduced rates for humanitarian service have all but disappeared. In the long term, whether NGOs work together or apart, combining the use or transportation assets is going to be a way of life if humanitarian missions are going to be successful. Utilizing one source for transportation and mission support just makes “cents”!

Finally, there is a need for an “immediate” response platform and there is one available. Training for responders can be enhanced, ongoing and accountable. There is a better way and Wings World Wide – The Air Medical Foundation has it.

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