Is there any estimate of the number of cargo aircraft which can be handled and accommodated per hour at Chitral Airport in northern Pakistan?

Question

I am working on a modeling case study in which I am using a realistic disaster response operation situation after a major earthquake in Chitral, Pakistan.

In this regard, I am using Chitral Airport as a local response center from where the transportation of relief to different affected areas will be realized.

I want to have an estimate of the number of cargo aircraft (such as C-130, C-17 or others in the inventory of neighbouring countries i.e. China and India) which can be handled on Chitral Airport in one hour.

So, the estimation quantity is total number of aeroplanes handled (landed and accommodated) per hour.

Answer 1

By looking at the said airport, one can pretty easily see that the limiting factor will be the offloading time of a cargo plane. The Apron is very small, and can only handle two, maybe three in maximum of cargo planes.

I'm not an expert on cargo handling, but a rough estimate would be about an an hour per plane for the C-17 size aircraft. A single operation would, with taxiing, take about 1,5 hours. Since the apron can only handle the aforementioned 2, max. 3 planes at a time, separation during flight would not be an issue.

So my best guesstimate would be a maximum of a bit less than two operations per hour for large aircraft, given the weather will not limit flying. Smaller planes could operate on much shorter interval, half and hour maybe. Then again, two large cargo planes would pretty much block the apron anyway, so adding smaller planes to the mix might not help much. edit: As the comments suggested the cargo was forwarded via air, this would complicate the equation. A single load of a C-130 would translate into about 4 Mi-17 loads which is manageable, but a fully laden C-17 would require a whopping 15 Mi-17 flights ^(X. Managing 2 cargo plane takeoffs and landings and tens of helicopter operations on such a small area as the Chitral airport is not safe.

You should take into account what kind landing and t/o weights Chitral can handle. If that turns out to be a limiting factor, there would not be much sense in operating large cargo planes half empty to/from there.

edit: Since some comments mentioned the unprepared field capability of C-130 and C-17, and it was also suggested that offloading chould be done outside the apron, I must stress that the unprepared field capability does not mean that the planes can taxi, take off and land everywhere. The load bearing capability of the surface used must be taken into account even if planes landing gears were designed to be able to operate on all kinds of surfaces! You do not want to bring the operation to a halt simply because a plane sunk its wheels to the ground. Once that happens, they need to be lifted out.

Also runway length can be a restriction. Even though (if I understood correctly) Chitral would be the destination of cargo, the landing distance requirements might be a limitation for heavy landings.

Taking all of the aforementioned aspects into consideration, large planes might not be the optimal choice after all. You should also think about the ground logistics. Running the ops at max efficiency will kick up considerable ground traffic.

^X)_{Cargo capacities: C-130: 20000kg C-17: 77000kg Mi-17: 4 000 kg internal or 5000kg external}

Answer 2

Assuming you are sending aircraft which can unload on unprepared surfaces, and the flood plane to the east of the runway is a suitable surface:

The main limiting factors are

1. Safe separation. This might be about 120 s between when the leading aircraft finishes taxiing and when the following aircraft lands.
2. Taxi time. Assume the typical taxi is 700 m at 7 m/s. Then add 100 s for taxi.

Unloading time and departure time are not relevant because you probably do not have enough cargo aircraft to fill up the space east of the runway (after demolishing small obstacles.) Unloading can be simultaneous. Just leave your empty aircraft there until no more are landing.

My estimate is about 16 aircraft per hour. You will have a tough time finding 16 aircraft ready for this mission.