Strictly commercial or military terms
Hompy,
In many ways I empathize with you.
In other ways I hold an opposing view.
First of all I don’t see much chance of western civilian helicopters getting into either of the two currently stricken areas, for political and nationalistic reasons. If I am proven wrong then I would suggest it will only be through an established operator already set up to work for the UN.
As a small operator in the region I would like see a flow of cash from the relief agencies to local operators who have the availability and capability to do the work, rather than see a flow of volunteers passing through and heading for the quake zone who are ready to undercut the market with “experimental” aircraft (Bell 205’s and the like).
It was rather galling to sit through the Asian Tsunami with aircraft fully certified, licensed and ready to go, and not get one hour of flight time while helicopters of all shapes and sizes came into the region from thousands of miles away and flew hundreds of revenue hours. Not on any “Samaritan Flights” but on good old commercial terms. This I believe was primarily because a handful of operators/brokers with good UN contacts had the market sewn up.
So again I would prefer to see aid agencies get the funds to rent air support on commercial terms from local regional operators; discounted for volume of course.