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Bagram C-130s Use High-Tech Cargo Delivery System
American Forces Press Service ^ | Maj. David Kurle, USAF

Posted on 09/06/2006 5:54:21 PM PDT by SandRat

WASHINGTON, Sept. 6, 2006 -- The same global positioning technology that helps fighter and bomber pilots deliver smart bombs with pinpoint accuracy now allows bundles dropped from cargo planes to steer themselves to drop zones.

Click photo for screen-resolution image
A new GPS-guided “Screamer” bundle from the Joint Precision Air Drop System falls out the back of a C-130 Hercules over Afghanistan Aug. 26. The drop was made from 17,500 feet above mean sea level and was the first joint Air Force-Army operational drop of JPADS in the Central Command area of responsibility. Four bundles were dropped from the Alaska Air National Guard C-130. The system is designed to provide precision airdrops from high altitudes, eliminating the threat of small-arms fire. All four bundles arrived less than 25 meters from the desired target. Photo by Senior Airman Brian Ferguson, USAF  '(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available.

A C-130 Hercules from the 774th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron here dropped supplies to a U.S. Army unit in Afghanistan Aug. 31, using the military's newest airdrop system for the first time in a combat zone.

An Air National Guard crew, deployed from Alaska's 144th Airlift Squadron, dropped bundles using the Joint Precision Airdrop System, or JPADS, which the Army and Air Force have been developing together since 1993.

"This was the first Air Force employment of the Joint Precision Airdrop System in an operational or combat airlift mission," said Maj. Neil Richardson, chief of the combat programs and policy branch at Air Mobility Command. He deployed here as part of the JPADS Mobile Training Team to oversee the first combat use of the system and to train C-130 crews how to use it.

"The system did exactly what it was designed for and delivered ammunition and water to ground troops here in Afghanistan," he said.

The JPADS is a family of systems designed to bring the same accuracy to the airlift community that strike pilots have enjoyed since the development of GPS-guided bombs, called joint direct attack munitions, or JDAMS. "It's the JDAMS of logistics," Richardson said.

The goal, when the system is fully developed, is to field four sizes of JPADS: extra light, light, medium and heavy. Though still in the concept-development phase, the heavy JPADS may be able to airdrop up to 60,000 pounds of cargo, more than enough to deliver the Army's eight-wheel Stryker combat vehicle.

"Soldiers in forward fighting positions will have a viable means of airdrop resupply, which is more accurate and increases survivability of critical supplies, like ammunition, fuel, food and water," said Chief Warrant Officer Cortez Frazier, aerial delivery chief for Combined Joint Task Force 76's Joint Logistics Command. “JPADS will ensure the warfighter can continue to combat and win against terrorism."

The JPADS loads have GPS receivers that are updated while traveling in the airplane through a repeater in the cargo bay that re-broadcasts the aircraft's GPS coordinates to electronics fastened to the cargo.

When dropped, the GPS receivers guide steering mechanisms that literally fly the cargo under a rectangular “parafoil,” to the desired point of impact.

"They are autonomously steered by GPS and electro-mechanical steering actuators," said Maj. Dan DeVoe, a command tactician at the Air Mobility Warfare Center, at McGuire Air Force Base, N.J., and also on the mobile training team. The actuators pull risers on a parachute -- turning it one direction or another -- to position the load over the desired point of impact.

Once the load is positioned over the drop zone, a second parachute deploys, and the cargo descends almost straight down to troops on the ground.

In Afghanistan, C-130 crews drop the light version of JPADS, dubbed the "screamer" because it falls at 100 mph. It can deliver container delivery system bundles containing food, water, ammunition and other supplies weighing 500 to 2,000 pounds to troops on the ground.

"We're resupplying small units, so we don't need a big volume of parachutes and equipment," said Army Lt. Col. Robert Gagnon, the deputy commander of the 10th Sustainment Brigade, whose job is resupplying soldiers in Afghanistan. "It allows us to get into a small area from a stand-off distance, where the aircraft is out of harm's way."

Prior to dropping the screamer, a C-130 loadmaster will pitch a small transmitter called a “dropsonde” from the back of the aircraft. The dropsonde relays wind speeds and direction back to the navigator's laptop computer.

"It's a very accurate, very real-time wind picture of what's going on out there," Richardson said. "A lot of your error comes from wind, and we've taken a lot of the error out."

Under traditional airdrop procedures, C-130 navigators guided pilots to a single point in space to take advantage of forecasted winds to blow unguided loads under a parachute to a drop zone on the ground. Forecasted winds may or may not have been the same by the time aircraft actually arrived at drop zones.

With JPADS, navigators gather up-to-the-minute information about wind direction and speed, then, because the loads can steer themselves, can fly to an area over the drop zone to release the loads as opposed to a single point.

"As long as you are in that ‘launch acceptability’ region, you can call ‘green light’ and your loads are going to go to their intended targets," Richardson said.

In addition to accuracy, JPADS allows different bundles to steer themselves to more than one drop zone.

"You can basically fly to an area, drop the bundles, and they will steer where they need to go," DeVoe said. "With one green-light call, bundles can go to multiple locations."

The increased accuracy and ability to drop to more than one location at the same time means that soldiers on the ground recover the cargo quickly and know exactly where it will land.

"(JPADS) ensures the supplies are received in a timely manner," Gagnon said. "The soldiers get what they need, when they need it and how they need it. The drop zone is set up for a shorter period of time, the loads come in, the aircraft is gone and the Soldiers are gone before the enemy knows what's taken place."

The new system also allows aircrews to drop from higher altitudes, moving C-130s farther from the threat of enemy ground fire and still deliver cargo accurately by air drop. The higher an aircraft drops, the less accurate the loads become -- until now.

"JPADS takes the aircrew and the aircraft out of harm's way by being higher and further away from the drop zones and therefore, further away from the threats," Richardson said.

"On the ground side, the precision of the airdrop systems themselves allows the guys to pick up all the stuff right around the desired point of impact, as opposed to being dispersed or scattered across the entire drop zone," he said. "They're not risking their lives gathering the loads."

(Air Force Maj. David Kurle is assigned to the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing.)

Related Sites:
Combined Forces Command Afghanistan
More Photos


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: afghanistan; bagram; c130s; cargo; delivery; hightech; system

1 posted on 09/06/2006 5:54:23 PM PDT by SandRat
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To: 91B; HiJinx; Spiff; MJY1288; xzins; Calpernia; clintonh8r; TEXOKIE; windchime; Grampa Dave; ...

C-130 Delivery!!!


2 posted on 09/06/2006 5:54:48 PM PDT by SandRat (Duty, Honor, Country. What else needs to be said?)
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To: SandRat

Well, that's a definite improvement over accidentally dropping a pallet on some poor b******'s head because you dropped long over the DZ.


3 posted on 09/06/2006 5:55:28 PM PDT by Spktyr (Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
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To: SandRat
"You can basically fly to an area, drop the bundles, and they will steer where they need to go," DeVoe said. "With one green-light call, bundles can go to multiple locations."

To F'ing cool! Logistics enters the 21st century!

4 posted on 09/06/2006 6:03:00 PM PDT by operation clinton cleanup
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To: Spktyr

As someone who has run for his life over a late release, I'll agree to that.


5 posted on 09/06/2006 6:05:26 PM PDT by Lokibob (Spelling and typos are copyrighted. Please do not use.)
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To: SandRat

"oops..."

6 posted on 09/06/2006 6:07:22 PM PDT by xcamel (Press to Test, Release to Detonate)
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To: SandRat

This is GREAT!


7 posted on 09/06/2006 6:18:10 PM PDT by unkus
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To: Lokibob

I was not that unfortunate - I just happened to watch a C-130 drop long over an airport and the payload took out cars in the parking lot instead...


8 posted on 09/06/2006 6:22:14 PM PDT by Spktyr (Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
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To: SandRat

We ought to use one of those to drop REID in Nevada.


9 posted on 09/06/2006 6:23:24 PM PDT by Prost1 (I get my news at Free Republic!)
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To: Spktyr

Yuma Proving Ground in the 70's. Mission: Drop a commercial front end loader out of a C-130. Me, I was doing weather support in the DZ. I evacuated to a hill at drop minus 3 mins. C-130 come in, drops long, right over my head (and a bunch of others). Result: one 1/2 ton pickup truck with a 2 ton front end loader in its bed. Damage to the front end loader, broke a headlight. Pickup, totaled, frame bent.


10 posted on 09/06/2006 6:31:41 PM PDT by Lokibob (Spelling and typos are copyrighted. Please do not use.)
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To: SandRat
Cool, next we can drop MOAB from a galaxy C5 and blow the crap out of Iran's nuke plants with out using nukes.
11 posted on 09/06/2006 6:35:59 PM PDT by pwatson
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To: Lokibob

Funny story but I think a front end loader weighs a little more than 4000 lbs. ;-)


12 posted on 09/06/2006 6:36:09 PM PDT by Normal4me
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To: Normal4me
Well, He didn't say that they used JPADS on the drop in the 70's.
13 posted on 09/06/2006 7:15:23 PM PDT by marktwain
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To: SandRat

14 posted on 09/06/2006 7:27:32 PM PDT by Donald Rumsfeld Fan ("Fake but Accurate": NY Times)
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To: pwatson
Cool, next we can drop MOAB from a galaxy C5 and blow the crap out of Iran's nuke plants with out using nukes.

MOAB can be dropped by a C-130, or presumably maybe two from a C-17 and maybe 3 or 4 from a C-5.

That said, a MOAB would not take out the buried nuke plants. It would do a number on the above ground heavy water plant that we've seen pictures of.

15 posted on 09/06/2006 8:37:20 PM PDT by El Gato
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To: Lokibob

So, did they paint a little pickup truck under the Hercules' cockpit window?


16 posted on 09/06/2006 8:42:55 PM PDT by MediaMole (9/11 - We have already forgotten.)
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