Which factors are considered when selecting the number of landing sites?

• A. Mission, Terrain, Number of aircraft, and amount of equipment to be sling loaded
• B. Weather, Time of day, Pilot experience, and terrain
• C. Crew training level, Aircraft color, Weather, and distance to drop zone
• D. Mission, Weather, Number of aircraft, and fuel on hand

Answer: (A)

Planning how many landing sites to use comes down to aligning the mission with the lift capacity and the terrain. You start with the mission—what needs to be moved and where the loads must end up. Then you assess the terrain to determine where safe, suitable landing zones exist, including size, obstacles, and surface conditions. The number of aircraft available dictates how many loads you can deliver in parallel or how many trips you can make without creating bottlenecks. Finally, the amount of equipment to be sling loaded sets the workload size, which often requires additional sites to receive loads without crowding a single zone.

Weather and time of day can affect whether a site is usable and how safely you can operate, but they don’t by themselves determine the required number of landing sites. Similarly, factors like pilot experience, color of aircraft, or distance to the drop zone influence execution and safety but are not primary determinants of how many landing sites are needed.