The country's Army Aviation Corps is looking to build on its experience garnered from quake-relief missions in Sichuan over the past weeks, a senior officer said on Friday.

"The relief work for the disaster was a great opportunity for the corps to explore the experience and methods for a range of missions," Major-General Ma Xiangsheng, chief of Army Aviation of the People's Liberation Army's General Staff Headquarters, said at a defense ministry briefing for foreign military attaches in Beijing.

Following the May 12 quake, the Army Aviation Corps dispatched more than 100 helicopters to towns and villages cut off from the outside by the tremor. They delivered more than 2,000 tons of relief supplies and saved more than 2,700 quake victims, the 59-year-old Ma said.

"Many young pilots gathered significant experience, which could not have been possible in day-to-day training," he said.

About 80 percent of the corps' quake-relief missions were carried out under inclement weather or over tough terrain.

In the first 10 days after the quake, many pilots also had to fly for more than 10 hours a day, Ma said.

"The role of the Army Aviation Corps was given full play during the relief missions. In war or in peace, many of the corps' functions cannot be substituted by other branches."

The corps will also be involved in security missions for the Beijing Olympics, Ma said, without elaborating.

But he said the Army Aviation Corps remains small and would benefit from more experience. It especially lacks major helicopters for transporting large equipment, Ma said.

"Compared with the army aviation troops of developed countries, our equipment is obviously inadequate in terms of function and quality," Ma said.

Ma's remarks echoed public sentiment for more helicopters to handle major disasters. The wreckage of a military helicopter on a relief mission in the end of May also sparked calls among military aficionados for more advanced models with better electronics and navigation systems.

The Army Aviation Corps was founded in 1986 to carry out air maneuvers and provide support for ground operations. It now has 15 regiments with nearly 500 attack and transport helicopters.

Himself a pilot, Ma was involved in founding the Army Aviation Corps. He has also trained in aviation and space institutions in France.

Ma's briefing on Friday was the first organized by the defense ministry to brief foreign military attaches on a specific branch of the Chinese army. The ministry will arrange more briefings in the future, Major-General Qian Lihua, Director-General of the ministry's Foreign Affairs Office, said.

(China Daily July 5, 2008)