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by RapidFire 1918 days ago
You would probably need to be the US military. Once you have a setup onsite; helicopters, pilots, fuel, maintenance, crew to rig containers, you could rapidly unload the containers. Check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08K_aEajzNA

US Military is probably the only entity that could pull this off in a timely manner. At great cost of course...
1 comments
theshrike79 1918 days ago
Except the US Military has exactly zero helicopters capable of lifting anything that heavy.

Russian Military has: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mil_Mi-26

That's the one they've used to rescue downed US helicopters :)

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RapidFire 1918 days ago
Looks like your right. The US has: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_CH-53E_Super_Stallion... as its near equivalent with a external payload of 36,000 lb. The Russian helicopter carries 8000lbs more at 44,000lb, though Wikipedia doesn't say if this is an external or internal payload.

Looks like a 40ft shipping container weights around 8000lbs empty, couldn't find a stat on full. It seems such an operation would be outside the capacity of these helicopters. Sure they could comfortably lift empty containers, but probably not full ones.

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