bus driver mre story

[mxjf]

Ok, so I was talking to my bus driver today because she asked me about the mre I brought for lunch. she says she has a case of em in her garage, because, what do you know, they were left over from katrina. I asked her how much she wanted for one mre and she said I could have one for 5 bucks. she said she had either a cheese tortelini or a spaghetti and meat sauce one, so im cool with that. So basically I'm saying that im getting an mre thursday afternoon.


off topic, but with 2005 era mre's, how closed is the case box, because she said it was like glued, then taped, then strapped when she first got it. maybe they dont want anyone without an army issue knife getting into them lol.

[kman]

Those cases are secured pretty good. I've only seen then taped up when someone is shipping them in the mail but they usually have plastic bands around them and then the lids are glued pretty strongly together. If I had to guess, I'd guess they do this because of the way the cases are handled - thrown around, tossed on top of tanks, etc. and they probably want to be sure the tops don't pop off and send MREs flying everywhere.

[mxjf]

Hey kman, i just noticed you are from charlotte. im in summerfield near greensboro lol

[Ration Man]

If I'm not mistaken, the cases of MREs are designed to survive a drop from a few hundred feet or so from the back of helicopters or aircraft. It's a military specification for the ration cases. A good specification with obvious utility!

[kman]

Is that a spec for the cases or for the MREs themselves? I thought I read something a while back where MREs were supposed to be able to survive a fall of 1000 feet. Or was it 150 feet?

[mxjf]

From wikipedia:

"Packaging requirements are strict. MREs must be capable of withstanding parachute drops from 380 m (1,250 feet), and non-parachute drops of 30 m (100 feet). "

Ok so they can be parachuted a long ways. I am still very impressed by the 100 foot without parachute though.

[kman]

Good catch, mxjf!

[Richard w.]

I can't find the picture I saved to my hard drive, but you should see the way Humanitarian Daily Rations are delivered. They lower the ramp on a C-17 and push them all out -loose- from 10,000 feet. The individual rations are meant to flutter to the ground without rupturing (although some inevitably do).

This keeps the aircraft high enough to avoid hostile fire, and spreads the distribution out to prevent hoarding.

No cases, no pallets, no parachutes, and HDR's have the same packaging materials as MRE's.

[mxjf]

Yeah, HDR's are just lke mre's as they both have to be ready to eat and droppable from a good distance.

edit: 10,000 feet? wow. hdr's are way more sturdy.

[kman]

Here's a link to a news article I posted a while back with some of those HDR-drop pictures:

http://www.mreinfo.com/news/2004/12/28/ ... -pictures/


Can you imagine sitting there on the ground and it starts raining HDRs all of a sudden?!