PARADROPS and all that......

[buglerbilly]

Army testing new airdrop system for Afghanistan

Feb 23, 2010

By J.D. Leipold


Photo credit Courtesy Aberdeen Test Center

A Soldier pushes a parachute-less freedrop package from a helicopter during tests. Called the Freedrop Delivery System, the bundles of supplies up to 150 pounds can be released at about 70 knots airspeed from under 75 feet altitude. The Army's chief logistician said he hopes to have the new delivery system in Afghanistan by the end of summer. WASHINGTON (Army News Service, Feb. 23, 2010) -- The supply requirement in Afghanistan will dramatically increase this year according to the Army's top logistician, and he said the Army is testing a new airdrop system to help meet the demand.

Speaking at an Association of the U.S. Army Land Warfare Institute breakfast series Feb. 19, Lt. Gen. Mitchell H. Stevenson, Army G-4, told the attendees that he hopes the new delivery system will be ready for deployment to Afghanistan by the end of summer.

The Army Freedrop Packaging Concept Project is currently developing and testing a new airdrop system called the Freedrop Delivery System for Afghanistan.

The new system will allow bundles of supplies such as ammunition, small generators and other Class IX repair parts, Meals Ready to Eat, and bottled water of up to 150 pounds to be freedropped (no parachutes) at about 70 knots airspeed from under 75 feet above ground level at the current 19 Afghanistan outposts which can only receive supplies by air.

"The idea here was to develop a package that you just kick out the side of a helicopter or airplane when you're flying very low... 50 feet above ground," Stevenson said. "You eliminate the problem of packing, rigging the chute and of course doing any kind of recovery operation."

The freedrop system is currently being developed and tested by the Army G-4's Logistics Innovation Agency and involves a number of key stakeholders, to include operational partners in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C.

The Army already uses four airdrop systems in Afghanistan. Getting supplies to Soldiers there is tough because the country has no seaport and relies on two main land routes so "airdrop has become big business" said the Army's chief logistician.

Back in 2008, the service dropped about 600 short tons of supplies into Afghanistan, Stevenson said. Last year that was upped to 15,000 short tons, he said.

"Now with the force increase, I expect that will go higher this year, so we're getting really, really good at airdrop," he said, noting that the logistics challenge covers an area the size of Texas.

One of the fielded systems, the Joint Precision Airdrop System, or JPADS, allows the Air Force to fly above the sand and surface-to-air missile threats, drop supplies from 5,000 to 25,000 feet. The packages then descend via parachute, directed by an autonomous guidance unit to the landing site.

"It works, but it has a couple of problems," Stevenson said. "The first problem is right now the JPADS sees in two dimensions, so it sees the spot on the ground, but it doesn't see mountains that might be in the way... so we've had some mishaps with JPADS right into the side of a mountain."

He said the new generation of JPADS coming out should fix that problem.

"The other problem is this guidance device on the parachute is not something we want to throw away... we've got to get it back," he said. If the drop hits the side of a mountain, Soldiers still need to retrieve the guidance system which defeats the purpose behind JPADS.

"It's a bit of a challenge, and the Soldiers don't like it as much as we thought they would, particularly in those hard-to-get-to places, but we'll continue to work that," Stevenson said.

Another airdrop system, which Stevenson said had been "very, very useful" is the Low-Cost Low-Altitude, or LCLA parachute system, that can be dropped from between 150-300 feet, but is a bit of a challenge for Air Force C-130s because some drop sites are tough to get in, turn and get out to avoid threats.

Over the last two years, LCLA parachutes have been well received and used effectively by forces in Afghanistan. The chutes are very accurate and are one-time use, which means that the retrograde of the parachutes is not necessary. Soldiers simply recover the supplies and move out on their missions.

The trucking side of supply will also increase in Afghanistan along with airdrop, Stevenson said. The plus-up of 30,000 additional troops in Afghanistan amounts to nearly a doubling of forces, he said.

"Up until about two years ago, we had about 30,000 or 35,000 forces there, the better part of a division-plus, which you could supply mostly by air," he said. "Nowadays, with the size of the force that we have and will have over the course of the rest of the year, you have got to get a lot more ground distribution and a lot more military truck companies, so we'll be doing that."

[buglerbilly]

Cassidian's Ram-Air Cargo Parachute System Paralander Receives Operational Certification

(Source: Cassidian; issued March 18, 2011)



-- Fully automatic ram-air parachute system for the safe and pin-point delivery of sensitive loads
-- Provision of supplies for operational units in the crisis area
-- Approved for deployment in restricted areas, including in peacekeeping flight operations

The ParaLander ram-air cargo parachute system, developed and produced by Cassidian, has been approved for operational deployment by the Bundeswehr Technical Centre (WTD) 61 in cooperation with Cassidian in Manching.

ParaLander was classified as an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) following extensive flight testing, and is the only commercially available system in the world that can ensure the pin-point delivery of sensitive mission equipment, humanitarian aid and supplies fully automatically from the air without damage.

To date the German Armed Forces have procured five ParaLander systems within the scope of immediate operational requirements; these are now to be deployed for missions in Afghanistan. The procurement of additional systems for the German Armed Forces is envisaged.

ParaLander has received Category I certification under UAV regulations and is therefore approved for deployment in restricted areas, including in peacekeeping flight operations. The system is initially intended to carry a 1,000 kg payload, dropped from a C-160 Transall transport aircraft. The medium-term goal is also to be able to deploy the ParaLander over populated areas during operations and from on board the A400M. Depending on the type of aircraft dropping it, the system can be used at altitudes of up to 10,000 metres and over distances of up to 50 kilometres.

Cassidian is also working on making ParaLander able to carry payloads of more than five tonnes in the future. The system thus makes a significant contribution to supplying operational units that are cut off from supply routes in the crisis area. In addition, ParaLander improves safety for the aircrew of transport aircraft, as it can be dropped beyond the range of most air-defence systems in crisis regions.

ParaLander consists of a ram-air parachute and the control unit, which are lashed to the payload, and a mission planning system. After the parachute system has been dropped from the aircraft, the control unit steers it and its payload to the target area with the aid of servomotors and GPS. A patented mechanical system, activated by a laser altimeter, ensures that the load’s descent is slowed down in good time shortly before the landing.

Cassidian, an EADS company, is a worldwide leader in global security solutions and systems, providing Lead Systems Integration and value-added products and services to civil and military customers around the globe. In 2009, Cassidian – with around 28,000 employees – achieved revenues of EUR 5.4 billion. EADS is a global leader in aerospace, defence and related services. In 2009, the Group – comprising the Divisions Airbus, Astrium, Cassidian and Eurocopter – generated revenues of EUR 42.8 billion and employed a workforce of more than 119,000.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

DATE:31/03/11

SOURCE:Flight International

PICTURES: Germany's ParaLander cargo system cleared for use in Afghanistan

By Craig Hoyle

Germany's WTD-61 test unit has given its approval to the operational use in Afghanistan of a new cargo delivery system, which has been unusually categorised as an unmanned air vehicle.

Described as a ram-air cargo parachute system and developed by EADS's Cassidian business unit, the "ParaLander" design has been the subject of recent "extensive flight testing" conducted from Manching in Germany, the company says.

By using the equipment from its current C160 Transall and future Airbus Military A400M transport aircraft, the German air force will be able to "ensure the pinpoint delivery of sensitive mission equipment, humanitarian aid and supplies fully automatically from the air without damage," Cassidian says.


© Cassidian

Its current design has a payload capacity of 1,000kg (2,200lb), and can glide for up to 27nm (50km) following its release from an altitude of 32,800ft (10,000m). Cassidian says the growth path for the ParaLander could in time enable it to carry a cargo of more than 5,000kg.


© Cassidian

Following its release, the ParaLander's embedded control unit steers the vehicle to its intended target area by using GPS guidance and servomotors. Its developer says a laser altimeter-activated mechanical system is then employed to slow the load's descent before landing.

The German defence ministry has so far ordered five ParaLander systems, with the equipment cleared for use in support of the nation's contribution to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. "The procurement of additional systems for the German armed forces is envisaged," says Cassidian.

[buglerbilly]

Sky's the limit for airdrops

October 5, 2011

By Bob Reinert



NATICK, Mass, Oct. 5, 2011 -- Solutions to problems don't usually fall from the sky.

Exceptions to this rule come in the form of good ideas generated by the airdrop professionals at Natick Soldier Systems Center in Massachusetts, whose best answers to tough questions normally float gently to earth. With Soldiers fighting in remote areas of Afghanistan where resupply often must come from the air, that won't change anytime soon.

"If you're going by helicopter to resupply, it's very easy for the enemy to try and shoot you down," said Andrew Meloni of Airdrop Technology Team. "So the only means of resupply for some of these bases is airdrop."

In 2010, the Air Force alone airdropped 60.4 million pounds of supplies in Afghanistan, up from 2 million pounds in 2005. "In theater right now, they've been doubling airdrops every year," said Rich Benney, division leader, Aerial Delivery Equipment and Systems Division.

Terrain and wind present further challenges, however. Supplies dropped by conventional means can drift off course or roll down mountainsides and out of safe reach. And when isolated Soldiers don't receive their supplies, lives can be at risk.

"For that kind of high-priority situation, we've developed what we'll call smart airdrop or precision airdrop, which is guided the entire way down," said Chris Ormonde of ATT.

The Joint Precision Airdrop System, or JPADS, uses a GPS, avionics and motors to guide steerable parachutes to one or more landing zones simultaneously with the kind of precision made necessary by the rugged terrain of Afghanistan. Though it has accounted for less than 1 percent of all airdrops, JPADS has proved invaluable since its debut there in August 2006. The number of precision deliveries coming down will only increase.

"Right now, there are more than a hundred JPADS 2K systems in theater," Benney said. "It takes a while to get these back after a drop. You're clearly not using a lot of them. Most drop zones can utilize fielded one-time-use, unguided parachute systems. But the JPADS can get supplies into really tight and challenging terrain areas."

"We just basically program in the landing coordinate--latitude, longitude and elevation--throw it out, and the system will steer itself, completely autonomously, to the target," Meloni said.

That puts Soldiers at less risk when retrieving supplies. The airdrops, made from high altitudes, also keep aircrews safer than they would be on low-altitude passes.

"It gets the Air Force up high, out of the threat range," Benney said. "It allows them to be offset from the target. It allows the Air Force…to either pick from within a big area (launch-acceptability region) in the sky to drop to one point, or they can actually drop from one point and hit multiple targets, which is unique.

"The first time they employed the program of record (which is managed and executed by U.S. Army Product Manager Force Sustainment Systems, also at Natick) in theater they put out eight bundles and they programmed four to one (forward operating base) on one side of the valley and four to one FOB on the other side of the valley. That's unique."

Low-altitude airdrops in some areas are perilous.

"Around some regions of Afghanistan, if we come in low, they'll actually shoot from the top of the mountains down on the aircraft," Meloni said. "So getting up high -- and by high I mean 17,000 to 25,000 feet -- and dropping keeps them out of that threat range from small-arms fire and man-portable air defenses."



The JPADS family of systems allows for the delivery of different payload weights from 10 pounds to tens of thousands of pounds. In a single pass, one aircraft can deliver supplies to multiple FOBs. "We're getting within 100 meters in theater, and we've actually had efforts to push that in closer, within 50 meters," said Meloni of JPADS' accuracy. "It can be dropped day, night -- it doesn't matter."

"The accuracies are a function of JPADS weight class," Benney said. "So the smaller it is, the more accurate it is."

The decision of whether to use the accurate but more costly delivery systems depends on the situation.

"There is still a subset of drop zones in theater where we do need that really precise, guided system," Meloni said. "As you can see with the terrain there, it's not always easy to get some of this stuff back, so there's been a big push to reduce the cost."

One way to do that, said Meloni, is to use a modular version from which electronics can be removed after the supplies land.

"You actually reduce the cost of the system (significantly), and you're able to recover the most-expensive pieces," Meloni said.

Benney said that a normal airborne guidance unit weighs about 90 pounds. PM-FSS has developed a modular AGU that weighs 30 pounds less than that.

"The modular AGU repackages existing components and consolidates more than 50 percent of the AGU value in an easily removable module that can be recovered on a hot drop zone and is half the size of a shoebox," Benney said. "Throw it on your backpack (and) leave everything else, if required."

That's not the only opportunity for savings, Meloni said.

"In addition to the lower-cost guidance unit, (PM-FSS has) actually (developed and used a one-time-use, much) lower-cost parafoil," Meloni added.

Meloni called JPADS part of a "toolbox of systems that the Air Force and the Army can use to get supplies to the troops in Afghanistan or Iraq."

As Benney noted, the Army and Air Force have worked together to field the system.

"In general, the Air Force is responsible for getting you to the right point in the sky and knowing the weather," said Benney, "and the Army develops and pays for nearly everything that leaves the aircraft."

In the future, combat teams are likely to find themselves increasingly dispersed around the battlefield in the early days of a conflict. That dynamic environment would make JPADS even more vital to successful resupply and would push further refinements to the system.

On so-called "combo drops," different systems would communicate with one another during a drop.

"Right now, they do not know where each other is in the sky," Benney said. "We're looking in the future for secure (communications) so that each system can say, hey, this is where I am, and this is where I'm going, so that they don't hit each other and can pass each other information that will enhance situational awareness and accuracy.

"You could do -- and we're looking at -- follow the leader, have them fall into a pattern (stack up), which is what some of the (Special Forces) guys want to do."

The airdrop folks also have been dropping lighter-weight JPADS off of unmanned aircraft, which could be the future of aerial delivery.

"It could be an unmanned aircraft that comes by with all these different things," said Benney, "a loitering aircraft in a battle so you can get somebody anything they want right where and when they want it, very quickly."

Benney knows what airdrop customers are after in the long run.

"They want street corner and rooftop accuracy," Benney said. "Ultimately, we want to be able to go down Third Avenue, take a left on A Street and land right in front of the door."

[buglerbilly]

Humanitarian Air Drop Snafus Get Crowd-Sourced

The Pentagon crowd-sources parachute problems in humanitarian food drops.

By Eric Niiler
Fri Nov 11, 2011 10:55 AM ET

THE GIST
- Humanitarian air drops can go off course, sometimes leading to injuries on the ground below.
- To find new ideas, the Pentagon crowd-sourced and found two winning solutions.
- One idea is to build an automated conveyor belt that takes weather conditions and terrain into account.


A C-17 air drop of 40 bundles to a remote outpost in Afghanistan.
U.S. Air Force photo/Master Sgt. Jeffrey Allen

As the U.S. military responds to more and more earthquakes, hurricanes and other natural disasters across the globe, it is finding that getting food and medicine to the right people and the right place isn't so easy.

Air drops go off-course, stuff lands in enemy territory and heavy piles of food or water injure (and sometimes kill) crowds below.

Recently, the military looked outside for help, putting out an engineering challenge that drew more than 1,100 entries on a web-based crowd-sourcing contest.

Among the winning solutions: An automated conveyor belt that launches gear out the back of a cargo plane and receives real-time data about wind speed, terrain and drop locations. As humanitarian cargo rolls out the back of the aircraft, webbing prevents it from blowing back inside by the vortex created by the airplane’s tail.

A second solution -- by a Dutch aid worker -- is also being considered that uses rollers and a special chute to eliminate pallets, the heavy wooden platforms that sometimes land on people waiting for help on the ground.

The U.S. Air Force has been working on air drop issues for years, building sophisticated sensors to figure out how best to distribute material. They tried all kind of ideas, including remote-controlled parachutes and other electronic devices to direct aid drops.

"What we wanted to do is sit back and say I've seen the Golden Knights (Army parachute team) jump out of a helicopter and land on a dime, what could we do to get that kind of precision," said David Shahady, a deputy at the Air Force Research Laboratory's rapid reaction and innovation group at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

Now they're trying the ideas from the outside -- building prototypes of both winning delivery systems. The goal is to find lower-cost solutions from experts and non-experts outside the military.

"We get a lot of DOD experts that give us advanced solutions," said David Shahady, a deputy at the Air Force Research Laboratory's rapid reaction and innovation group at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. "But there are folks out there that you wouldn't think have a solution. Even if it's not perfect, it might spark us."

Shahady said the conveyor belt solution -- as proposed by an Indonesian engineer -- is something a lot simpler: the automated belt could be programmed to drop at just the right time -- with weather and ground conditions all factored in.

The Pentagon has embraced crowd-sourcing recently, challenging the public to figure out how to wargame a way to defeat Somali pirates, carry injured Special Forces units through rugged enemy territory, or invent better gloves for troops sliding down new synthetic ropes.

The advantage to crowd-sourcing competitions is they cost very little to run compared to grant-making, and only the best solutions get a financial reward, according to Dwayne Spradlin, CEO of InnoCentive, the firm that developed the web-based crowd-sourcing methodology for the Air Force.

"Organizations say they spent $100,000 to a $1 million solving this problem," Spradlin said from his Boston office. "This is a fraction of that. We’re bringing solutions out in 90 days and I'm only paying for the solution."

Last year, InnoCentive worked with NASA to figure out a better way to protect satellites from solar flares. The winning entry came from a retired engineer and ham radio operator who had noticed certain frequency patterns that occur during solar events and developed a mathematical model to protect them.

His answer helped NASA up its lead time on these events from four to eight hours, protecting satellites and astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

The company also works with drug manufacturers and medical firms to design new medicines. Spradlin said a diversity in thought processes is key in crowd-sourcing challenges.

"We're not trying to get the biochemistry problem to the biochemistry folks," Spradling said. "We're looking for physicists or construction workers to solve the problem."

[buglerbilly]

Roadside Bombs Lead to More Precision Airdrops

November 18, 2011

Stars and Stripes|by Seth Robson



YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan -- Spurred by the threat of roadside bombs, logistics commanders in Afghanistan have massively increased the use of cheap, disposable cargo parachutes and satellite-guided airdrops to supply troops on the ground.

The Army reported this week that 85 million pounds of supplies were airdropped in Afghanistan in fiscal year 2011. That's a 24-fold increase over the 3.5 million pounds airdropped in 2006, according to figures reported in Defense Industry Daily earlier this year.

Taliban attacks on ground convoys -- which transport food, water, ammunition, fuel and equipment to far-flung U.S. bases -- are a key reason why so much cargo is falling from the sky, according to Ben Rooney, an engineer at the U.S. Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Mass. Roadside bomb attacks hit an all-time high in Afghanistan this summer with more than 1,600 attacks reported in June.

Airdrops not only get supplies where they need to be, they also maximize troops' safety, Rooney said.

"Improvised explosive devices have proven to be the Achilles' heel throughout recent years and claimed numerous lives and limbs of our warfighters," he said.

The bulk of the airdropped supplies were attached to cheap, disposable parachutes -- called Low-Cost Low-Altitude parachutes -- that are dropped from an aircraft flying as low as 150 feet above the ground.

In the last fiscal year, 2.5 million pounds were airdropped using such parachutes, double what fell the previous year, according to the Army.

Scott Martin, who is working to refine airdrop equipment at the Soldier Systems Center, said the low-altitude airdrops use $200 parachutes, each capable of supporting 200 pounds of supplies.

"Because the drop is so low there is less time aloft so it tends to be more accurate than traditional airdrop systems," Martin said. "It is still predicated on the skill of the aircrew but you have no wind influence like you would from something dropped from several thousand feet."

Older airdrop systems used more expensive parachutes that soldiers were expected to recover from the battlefield and ship back to the Air Force.

The low-altitude airdrops are a good way to get supplies to small units, such as Special Forces troops, on the move, Martin said.

"The disposable part is a huge factor," he said. "It reduces the workload on soldiers immensely and it reduces their exposure time when they are retrieving the equipment."

However, flying low could expose aircraft to enemy fire so commanders need to take that into account, he said.

"It's a trade-off," he said. "You gain accuracy with some risk."

The Air Force also is ramping up its use of a system that links global positioning satellites to small motors that steer supply parachutes down to ground troops, Rooney said. The GPS-guided parachutes have worked so well that the Air Force plans to increase their use from 100 airdrops in the past year to 40 per month, he said.

The "Joint Precision Air Drop System" enables a navigator, equipped with a laptop to enter data such as the coordinates of the drop zone, wind speed and direction. The system then tells the navigator where to release the load, Rooney said.

The system's motors control parachutes in the same way that skydivers pull cords to guide their canopies into the drop zone, he said.

Engineers' goal was to land satellite-guided parachutes inside a 150-meter diameter circle but the system works so well that 80 percent of loads drop in an 80-meter circle and 100 percent fall within a 100-meter circle, Rooney said.

The satellite-guided system allows cargo aircraft to fly as high as 25,000 feet where wind would normally be a major factor. The altitude puts them beyond the range of Afghan insurgents who frequently take pot shots at low flying planes, he said.

It also allows supplies to be "flown" to a drop zone from a release point up to 16 miles away, he said.

"They can fly [the GPS-guided parachute] over a ridge line, down a valley and into a forward operating base," he said. "They can do a single pass over a valley and resupply two bases."

The systems, which cost $20,000 each, carry up to 2,200 pounds of cargo. If troops are in a hurry they only need to unclip an 8-pound avionics unit to have recovered half the system's value, Rooney said. "This is also a game changer for users (such as Special Operations personnel) who jump in with their supplies," he said. "They can now be confident that their supplies we will be at the intended point on the ground when they land rather than having to hunt them down."

Capt. Jeremy Hague, 28, of Pittsburgh, a navigator with the 36th Airlift Squadron out of Yokota Air Base, Japan, said a big advantage of the GPS-guided parachute is its ability to hit a target in poor visibility.

"We can drop it above the clouds and it will steer itself to the impact point," he said.

However, Hague, who's recently deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and practiced GPS-guided drops in the skies over Mount Fuji, said the low-altitude drops are more exciting.

Last month, six C-130 Hercules transport aircraft swooped low over Yokota Air Base to drop sandbags attached to the low-cost parachutes.

"It's exciting because you are down there looking at where you are dropping it whereas with the Joint Precision Air Drop System you just drive to a point in space and drop it," Hague said.

[buglerbilly]

Army tests new water, fuel bladders for airdrop

November 17, 2011

By Sgt. Michael J. MacLeod, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division Public Affairs









CAMP MACKALL, N.C. (Nov. 16, 2011) -- Army paratroopers here completed two of three test drops Nov. 10 to certify a new water and fuel container system for airdrops in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Each drop of two Lifeliner container-unitized bulk equipment, or CUBEs, delivered hundreds of gallons of water safely to the ground under dual, 100-foot-wide parachutes from over 1,000 feet, according to the project lead, John Mahon of the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development & Engineering Center of Natick, Mass.

A third drop scheduled for the same day was scratched due to mechanical issues aboard the aircraft, said Mahon.

The new container, a polypropylene bladder-like "blivet" nested inside a recyclable plastic box, was developed to meet specifications requested by the 101st Sustainment Brigade currently deployed to Afghanistan, he said.

The CUBE can be transported by truck or slingloaded beneath a helicopter, and unlike the old 500-gallon blivets, these 400-gallon systems can be stacked several high to reduce their storage footprint.

To meet current rigging guidelines and avoid delays, the airdropped blivets were filled to less than their maximum capacity.

The CUBE is 40 percent the cost of the current model, and when collapsed, can be handled by one person and stacked for storage.

For the test drops, the team was aided by sustainment paratroopers with the 82nd Airborne Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team, along with parachute riggers and heavy-equipment operators from the 82nd Sustainment Brigade, he said.

Lt. Col. Paul Narowski, senior logistician with 1BCT and commander of the 307th Brigade Support Battalion, said that validated airdrop-rigging procedures will ensure that, no matter where a force is on the battlefield, 400 gallons of fuel, water or unitized supplies can be delivered by surface, slingload or airdrop.

A pioneer of low-cost, low-altitude supply drop techniques in Afghanistan, Narowski sees the CUBE system as another relatively low-cost method of resupplying small bases.

"Use of the CUBE will support objectives to draw down forces and equipment in [Operation Enduring Freedom] by providing storage and distribution capability to the warfighter at a
greatly-reduced cost," he added.

The 11th Quartermaster heavy drop airdrop systems technician, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Terry Wright, said that because many of the civilian engineers were former riggers -- Mahon served 31 years -- working with them went particularly well.

Whereas a typical Army program from concept to operational tests can take 6-8 years, because the project was fast-tracked, operational testing was achieved in just over a year, Mahon said.

To date, 200 systems have already been fielded to deployed units with more on the way, he said. He hopes to certify the CUBE's airdrop capability and have a draft of airdrop procedures ready within the next 30-60 days.

[JimWH]

Has the RAAF invested in precision air drop systems (or are they considering it)? Seems like a staggeringly handy bit of kit with some obvious synergies with the tac lifter.

[Weasel]

Here,

Re the dumping a box from a helicopter.

Take a look at this



The inventor is a guy named Steve.

paragrate@worldnet.att.net

It basically consists of a reinforced length of garden hose (the one you have in your back yard). You place a rubber insert inside the hose and then you insert said filled hose into a tube with a precut hole and a plunger. You then place the apparatus in the inside wall of your cargo box, so you have, with the plunger and tube acting as a spacer between the outside wall and the inner wall (a box within a box configuration) and then throw it out the helicopter.

The KE upon impact is enough to turn the garden hose into a liquid (it changes state from a solid to a liquid) and is ejected out the predrilled hole on the side of the tube.

It is the same principle that is used in injection molding of plastic soda bottles.

Bigger load? Change the distance along the tube where the pre-drill hole is located. longer the distance for the stroke, the more energy is absorbed.

cheers

w

[buglerbilly]

Interesting pic via Army Recognition website......................


Engineers with the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development & Engineering Center of Natick, Mass., stand next to a test package of new water blivets while paratroopers with the 82nd Airborne Division land in the distance Nov. 10, 2011, at Camp MacKall, N.C. Airdrop certification will allow sustainment soldiers to resupply troops in the field with over 600 gallons of fuel or water in each two-blivet package.
(U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Michael J. MacLeod)

[buglerbilly]

Heaviest Air Load Ever Dropped in Afghanistan

(Source: US Army; issued Nov. 28, 2011)

PAKTIKA PROVINCE, Afghanistan --- With the inhospitable, mountainous terrain surrounding Forward Operating Base Curry making vehicle maneuver nearly impossible, units have relied heavily on air assets to receive supplies.

Soldiers from B Company of the 9th Engineer Battalion usually recover water, food, fuel and other classes of supplies from the drop zone, but this delivery, back on Nov. 23, was unlike all others, and was the first of its kind in the history of Operation Enduring Freedom.

"Today, we air-dropped a 16-foot platform carrying an all-terrain forklift. It is one of six platforms ever dropped in theater," said 1st Lt. Chelsea Craig, the 11th Quartermaster Detachment commander. "It is the first forklift dropped in theater and weighing in excess of 15,000 pounds, it is the heaviest platform ever dropped."

As the C-130 Hercules aircraft flew overhead, its rear ramp dropped and the crew pushed the platform carrying the historic load from the plane.

Within seconds, three parachutes opened and the platform descended onto the drop zone. Upon landing, the platform made a loud cracking noise as it came in contact with the earth's surface.

"Uh oh. That didn't sound good," said Maj. Michael Laporte, the 172nd Infantry Brigade support operations officer, as he watched from a tower overlooking the drop zone.

Once on the ground, engineer Soldiers ran over and inspected the new piece of equipment. Although the packing material encasing the equipment broke during landing, the forklift remained intact.

Every shadow of doubt about the operation's success disappeared when the Soldiers were able to fire up the forklift and use it to load boxes onto trucks.

"It went excellent," said Laporte. "When it came out, it didn't look good, but we pulled off the drop and they were able to pick up kicker boxes using the forklift."

The company's material handling equipment contract expired Nov. 19, so the forklift was necessary to help complete tasks they conduct around FOB Curry on a daily basis.

"Our daily sustainment tasks include picking up supplies from the helicopter landing zone, recovering container delivery system drops and also moving equipment around a combat outpost," said 1st Lt. Timothy Smith, executive officer of B Co., 9th Eng. Bn.

Although the load made history as the first forklift and heaviest load ever air dropped in theater, it is the added capabilities the forklift brings that made the drop worthwhile.

"It will now take the unit half the time to recover bundles that come in, which means they will spend less time on the drop zone and more time out of harm's way," Laporte said.

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