A Eye On The Impact Point
NEW JOINT AND SERVICE SOLUTIONS BOLSTER PERSONNEL AND CARGO AIRDROP CAPABILITIES.
To the surprise of some pundits inside the Washington, D.C., beltway, the capability to air drop cargo and warfighters has remained a joint and service mission requirement of the long war. The military-industry team is fielding a number of new and innovative parachute systems and supporting equipment to help the services get this job done.
Several of these programs will upgrade soldier systems which are familiar to Viet Nam-era—and earlier—training audiences and warriors. These and other developments will contribute to efficiently getting the warfighters and their equipment on the desired impact point—safely and on-time.
PERSONNEL SYSTEM DEVELOPMENTS
Irvin Aerospace, a member of the Airborne Systems consortium of parachute companies, is developing the MC-6 system, a system comprised of two canopies—a main and backup reserve.
The MC-6 features the latest in advanced design for steerable troop parachutes and utilizes the company’s SF-10A’s proven canopy design that is used by U.S. SOF. “In service for over ten years with more than 60,000 jumps, the SF-10A has proven itself to be a safe and reliable design,” said Gary Calvaneso, vice president of marketing. The MC-6 was developed through the Special Operations Forces Tactical Assault Parachute System program, he added.
In May 2006, the U.S. Army announced a $7.96 million contract to have Irvin Aerospace build 2,000 MC-6 systems— with 20,000 forecast through the life of the contract. The MC-6 will replace the venerable MC-1B/C/D system.
ATPS—SLOWING IT DOWN
The Army also has its sights set on fielding the T-11 Advanced Tactical Parachute System (ATPS) as the next generation of non-steerable personnel parachutes. “The ATPS/T-11 includes a complete, newly redesigned reserve parachute and integrated harness system that is suitable for the fifth percentile female to the 95th percentile male soldier,” pointed out Calvaneso.
The ATPS’s developmental testing was completed in June 2006. Operational testing will begin at Fort Bragg, N.C., at the start of 2007. The ATPS is envisioned to replace 53,000 T-10 systems by the end of fiscal year 2008.
The T-11 is the first major redesign of non-steerable, tactical systems since the 1950s and is a quantum improvement over the legacy T-10 system. The main canopy is a highly-modified version of a cross and cruciform platform and increased the inflated diameter by 14 percent and the surface area by 28 percent, when compared to the T-10D assembly.
“Unlike the current reserve parachute system, the T-11R reserve is an omni-directional, center-pull deployment system. The T-11 harness, due to higher placement of the D-rings, is designed to displace the opening shock of the reserve parachute equally along the long-axis of the jumper’s body,” said Calvaneso. “Additionally, the T-11 main canopy utilizes a slider to reduce the opening shock and control the opening of the canopy—contributing to the dramatic reduction in canopy isolation. The T-11 is designed to have an average rate of decent 18 percent slower than the T-10D assembly, and provide a resulting lower landing injury rate for the jumper,” he added.
Para Flite, another member of the Airborne Systems consortium, is completing this contract.
OTHER INNOVATIONS
Another new personnel system is EADS’s ParaFinder parachute system and navigation unit, which supports high-altitude, high-opening (HAHO) and high-altitude, low-opening (HALO) missions. The system consists of a ram-air parachute, Global Positioning System (GPS)-based navigation guidance system and jumper helmet with a heads-up display.
ParaFinder is preprogrammed with the estimate of the winds at the desired drop zone. Upon deployment from the aircraft, the system acquires GPS lock and provides the jumper with directional vectors to pre-programmed waypoints, and then to the desired impact area. The navigation unit allows for increased vertical standoff capability and maximized horizontal standoff capability. “It depends on wind conditions and the glide ratio of the parachute. With a drop height of 10,000 meters [32,808 feet], it is over 50 kilometers [31.1 miles],” said Corrina Mayer, an EADS spokeswoman.
ParaFinder has been fielded to German special forces and USSOCOM has tested it and “is thinking about a possible fielding,” said Mayer.
Complete Parachute Solutions (CPS) is developing new sizes for its SOV3-MM system, which is available in configurations for tandem and light-military tandem tethered bundle applications, as well as solo operators carrying full combat equipment, or for K-9 operations.
Two new CPS products are expected to be introduced later this year. The first is a SOV3-MM-15 variant with an HR-360 reserve canopy and next is the MS-360-M2 main canopy in development. CPS will also field the SOV3-MM-16, a hybrid between a multi-mission system and the company’s TS model (a harness and container system designed for HAHO and HALO tandem applications). The MM-16 will house CPS’s HR-400 reserve canopy and TP-460 main canopy variant.
JPADS EVOLVES
Natick Soldier Center, a subordinate command of the Army’s Research, Development and Engineering Command, continues to be “the one-stop shop for all of DoD’s airdrop and aerial delivery capabilities, both existing and desired,” observed Richard Benney, Joint Precision Airdrop System (JPADS) technical manager. JPADS is that command’s highest visibility program and is being supported by a number of evolving and new efforts.
JPADS is a family of systems that will have different weight ranges which allow conventional military aircraft to accurately drop sensors, munitions and/or a huge range of supplies on the battlefield—while minimizing risk to the aircraft and the possibility of enemy detection of drop zones.
Operations from the long war have confirmed the requirement to resupply remote forces which have no easy ground lines of communication and where low-altitude airdrops are extremely dangerous due to terrain constraints, tactical threats and other factors.
The systems will use gliding parachute decelerators, GPSbased guidance, navigation and control, weather data assimilation, and an airdrop mission planning tool to deliver cargo with near pinpoint accuracy. Of note, the current draft joint capability development document for JPADS has a key performance parameter for more accurate airdrops (50 meter (m) (objective) to a 150 m (threshold)) and from much higher altitudes (24,500 feet (ft) (threshold) and 35,000 ft (objective).
JPADS is expected to become a program of record later this year. To reach this acquisition milestone, Natick is supporting a number of prototype systems through the rapid fielding initiative process.
One, the JPADS Mission Planner (MP) “is being used by SOF for military free fall operations. It has the ability to more accurately drop high-altitude ballistic parachute systems and can be used with many JPADS systems,” said Benney.
The MP is used to determine the launch acceptability region for JPADS systems, provide the best weather prediction availability at the location and time of drop, and wirelessly update the JPADS decelerators in the cargo compartment just prior to dropping them—with the most current wind and other weather components, and impact points (if there are any changes).
The product is fielded through Draper Laboratory and Planning Systems Inc.
A second project involves guiding the 30,000- pound (lb) JPADS Army Technology Objective to completion. In January 2006, Para-Flite was selected to develop this system. “It will be the largest ram-air canopy ever built, with a surface area of almost 10,000 square-feet and over eight kilometers of suspension lines,” revealed Irvin Aerospace’s Calvaneso.
The first drop test drop of 20,000 lbs is scheduled for October 2006, and a record-breaking drop of 30,000 lbs is scheduled for mid-2007.
Natick Soldier Center is also working a number of other ballistic cargo and personnel parachute projects to obtain higher glide profiles, softer touchdown velocities and other desirable flight characteristics.
OTHER CARGO SYSTEM DEVELOPMENTS
Mist Mobility Integrated Systems Technology’s (MMIST) major product offerings include the CQ-10A Snow Goose. The product is an unmanned aerial vehicle and system developed to meet the demands of SOF. It can deliver up to 600 lbs of cargo deep into hostile territory.
“It is an organically deployable system that delivers unmatched payload, endurance, and operational flexibility, and is the world’s first fielded and deployed cargo UAV,” stated Sam Wehbe, company marketing analyst.
The Snow Goose is currently deployed to Afghanistan. Production is ongoing under the second full-rate production delivery order at a rate of two air vehicles per month, as part of a larger U.S. DoD indefinite delivery and indefinite quantity contract for up to 200 vehicles.
Ongoing payload development efforts include unique and powerful loudspeaker and broadcast systems, which add to the long list of specialized mission payloads available, added Wehbe.
MMIST’s Sherpa, a GPS-guided parafoil, has a payload ranging from 50 lbs to 2,200 lbs, noted the 2005 Precision Airdrop Technology Conference and Demonstration (PATCD) Final Report. The Sherpa 2200 (2,200 lbs) is a key component of JPADS. The Sherpa, and its accompanying training and maintenance programs are fielded with DoD and NATO nations. The system has been deployed to Iraq.
MMIST also has many ongoing research and development projects, to include providing a larger-scale version of the CQ-10A Snow Bird, and obtaining greatly increased payload (up to 10,000 lbs-Sherpa variants) with increased accuracy and advanced system functionality, revealed company spokesman Wehbe.
Another company, Atair Aerospace, has been working on autorotating parachutes, both single- and double-skin, for many years. The company is introducing a line of its Heli-Chutes product, with auto-rotating chutes, for low-cost humanitarian airdrop, SOF airdrop and specialized UAV recovery operations, revealed Rick Zaccari, the company’s marketing and sales manager.
The firm is also developing the Generation 2 upgrade for its Onyx 500 system, which will be fielded with characteristics such as flocking and swarming (formation flying), active collision avoidance, and adaptive control. “Adaptive control increases the mission critical capabilities and flexibility in the deployment of Onyx systems. It enables Onyx systems to fly correctly with gross variances in wingloading, as well as asymmetrically rigged payloads caused by pre-flight rigging errors or cargo changes, and correct for damage-induced asymmetries while in-flight,” added Zaccari.
Atair Aerospace was completing testing during mid-August on yet another product, the 7up Fixed Cluster Parachute (single parachute with a 7-parachute cluster shape) in the 2,000 pound range. The firm plans to soon scale the tests up to 10,000 lbs.
Complete Parachute Solutions as well has a number of R&D projects underway. One is an extreme, high-altitude deployment system using the “double-bag static line system,” said T.K. Donle, the company’s director of marketing. “We are in the process of developing a new, 9-cell, reserve canopy that will match the performance of our MS (Military Silhouette)-series main canopies,” he added.
ON THE HORIZON
Natick is expected to issue a request for proposal for the 2,000-pound JPADS program not later than October 2006. The program will be managed by U.S. Army Program Manager-Force Sustainment Support, said Benney. This program will designate a platform to provide small unit re-supply for the U.S. Army. No additional details were available.
CPS also has a new oxygen system in the R&D pipeline. “This system features light-weight oxygen bottles made from composite materials, a new light-weight mask, a unique ‘crush proof’ hose assembly, and a new multi-man, oxygen storage system using composite bottles and other advanced features,” added Donle.
SkyPath is a guidance unit for SOF paratroopers being developed by Rome, Italy-based Unmanned Technologies Research Institute (UTRI). The product is based on UTRI’s NEMO Mk11 autopilot, which performs all navigation and guidance functions. SkyPath is considered a guidance unit as opposed to a navigation aid since it gives the paratrooper guidance cues in the form of brake toggles that need to be applied. These cues appear on a screen which is mounted on the paratrooper’s chest. The system guides the paratrooper from the exit point all the way to touch down at the desired impact point, stated the PATCAD 05 Final Report.
Skypath is being tested by the Folgore Brigade and other Italian Army SOF. “Some SkyPath systems will probably be in service by the end of 2006,” remarked Marco Ballerini, chief executive officer, UTRI. Several planned upgrades through 2007 support “obstacle avoidance, 3-D visualization, and use on the ground as a navigation aid,” added Ballerini. ♦