Why It's No Longer Raining Cocaine in the Dominican Republic

Time Magazine ^ | Aug. 25, 2011 | Ezra Fieser

[sukhoi-30mki]

Why It's No Longer Raining Cocaine in the Dominican Republic

By Ezra Fieser / Santo Domingo

Drug cartels often drop their product from small planes for it to be picked up by traffickers on land. But sometimes those air deliveries miss their mark — and until recently, errant bundles of cocaine used to fall from the sky into the Dominican Republic's countryside so frequently that one rural cab driver tells TIME they were like "gifts from God," because residents who found them could sell them back to the narcos for a handsome price. "It paid better than any other job," says the cabbie, who lost his job and is separated from his wife because of the drug addiction he developed as a result of all that exposure to cocaine.

Mabel Féliz Báez, head of the Dominican Republic's National Drug Council, agrees that the Caribbean nation "was being bombed by these drug shipments." In 2007, at the height of the drops, at least 200 narcoplanes flew over the country, releasing thousands of pounds of cocaine at a time. But while much of it was en route to the U.S., Dominican officials didn't find much help from Washington in combating it. So they turned instead to a seemingly unheralded partner in the antidrug fight: Brazil. That year, Dominican President Leonel Fernández borrowed $93.7 million from the South American giant and purchased eight Super Tucanos, fast and agile single-engine turbo props manufactured by Brazilian aerospace corporation Embraer. Fernández "took a lot of heat for it," says Eduardo Gamarra, a U.S.-based adviser to the President. "That's a lot of money for the country." See photos of submarines used by Colombian narcotraffickers.

Today the heat is off: the Super Tucanos turned out to be an unusually worthwhile drug-war investm

[sukhoi-30mki]

[Tainan]

Great a/c. Very versatile. After purchase package is outstanding.

[EternalVigilance]

Cool story.

[JRandomFreeper]

That is a most billy-bad-ass turbo-prop AC. And as pretty as the Spitfire and the Mustang were, back in the day.

They gots beaucoup cooling for avionics with that little humpback, and one does wonder why they didn't integrate that dorsal vertical antenna with the vertical stab, but it's probably got power to spare, and runs close enough to mach for a prop.

And just maybe, all that extra stuff out there grabbing air has a positive effect on that mushy feeling when you drag a slick one onto final. (at lawful airpseeds, of course)

/johnny

[Freeport]

In order to keep weight down. In order to mount the antenna on the top of the rudder, a longer an more beefed up structure would have been required in response to the additional aero and moment loads induced on the tail; it's not trivial at speed.

It's easier to maintain and locate the antenna transceiver closer to the antenna for better noise immunity and antenna wire losses in the fuselage.

[Freeport]

" Perhaps the Super Tucano's chief asset is how quick and nimble it is in the air while still possessing more power than most planes used by traffickers. And precisely because it's less sophisticated than a fighter jet, less-experienced pilots can master it. But it can also be easily fitted with surveillance and targeting devices, and its .50-caliber machine guns can be supplemented with other artillery like air-to-air missiles, or, in Colombia's case, ground-attack weapons. What's more, says Buckey, the Super Tucano "can operate in austere airfields with a minimum amount of support."

The person who wrote this is a bit ignorant, but gets it mostly right except for two points:

The pilot does have to be highly trained; this isn't your grandpa's Cessna 170! Ask any P-51 pilot! Poor training equates to dead pilots.

And I believe the author meant "armament", not "artillery"...

As to the nose art, nice, but it doesn't make the pilot better, his aircraft more manuverable, nor improve the weapons carriage. And if you're a smuggler, and you can see it, you're already dead...

[paddles]

The USAF’s 12th AF should be taking a victory lap on this one for a job well done!