MAY 16, 2024 – In a combat theater, ground troops in the most isolated areas depend on airlifts for resupply.
In the worst conditions, time can be a matter of life or death.
U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground (YPG) is home to all manner of parachute testing, with spacious and instrumented ranges large enough to accommodate even the world’s largest cargo parachutes.
YPG has long been on the cutting edge of developmental and operational testing of new airdrop capabilities, and recently conducted a complex test to expand the effectiveness of currently fielded cargo parachutes by helping them function at higher altitudes to protect pilots from ground fire.
“The main goal of the test is to increase the capability, to drop at a higher altitude to have a higher offset from whatever location you are trying to drop to,” said Rosales. “We’re testing on all currently-fielded parachutes, everything from G12s that come down on drogue and then open up to systems like the JPADS.”
YPG is the Army’s primary personnel and cargo parachute tester, with decades of institutional knowledge in both rigging and evaluating these complex airdrop systems, as well as coordinating multiple sorties safely. The post’s nearly 2,000 square miles of restricted airspace and favorable weather make it an ideal location for air drop testing: Testers need plenty of room when testing these systems to ensure the safety of those below.
“The surface danger zones become fairly large because some of the parachutes we are using have a large glide ratio,” said Rosales. “They can fly for 20 or 30 kilometers to each side, so we have to make sure we contain all of our land and air space and ensure we aren’t encroaching elsewhere, particularly on the highway.”
YPG’s ranges typically host dozens of unique tests on a given day, which required careful coordination in advance of the airdrops: the drops had to occur on a strict time schedule, for example, and be careful to not allow radiofrequency interference with different testing in progress at the proving ground.
“We’re not the only ones on the range, so there is a lot of deconfliction that has to take place to accomplish this testing,” said Rosales.
Flying at altitudes typically used by commercial airliners required additional considerations: it is harder for an aircraft to make a turn in the air density at the higher altitude, so approach paths were carefully delineated before the drops.
“There’s also other restrictions on operating at the high altitude,” explained Rosales. “There’s a certain amount of time we have to drop at that altitude because of the exposure to lower oxygen for the crew.”
The testers also had to collect data on safety systems prior to beginning of the test.
“There are new hazards to this,” said Rosales. “We’ve had multiple safety boards to get our eyes on the technology and set parameters in order to mitigate those potential hazards.”
The higher altitude the testing required meant the evaluators needed to use a C-17 cargo aircraft as opposed to the C-130s typically utilized here.
“Fortunately we got two, so we could drop every day of the week,” said Rosales. “If we only had one, we would have to wait a 24-hour period between sorties.”
Wind speeds above and below can also alter a test plan. In one instance, high surface winds caused the testers to change to a different parachute system for the day for the safety of the crews recovering the parachutes at the drop zone.
“We have to be flexible with our plan and schedule,” said Rosales. “You can’t control winds, you have to deal with them.”
During the drops, the testers gathered data such as descent rates and the effects of the larger opening shock at higher altitudes.
“In most cases this is the first time that the parachutes are being dropped from that altitude, so everything we are collecting is new data,” said Rosales. “Each parachute has a maximum and a minimum weight, so we’re trying to verify that everything between those ends works.”
The sophisticated rigging configurations necessary for the test bundles and new parachute configurations largely depended on the expertise of the soldiers and civilian personnel from YPG’s Airborne Test Force and DEVCOM Soldier Center. In some cases, wholly different methods were required.
“Some parachutes are not designed to deploy at that altitude, so they use drogue parachutes to descend to an altitude that is appropriate to deploy the main parachute,” said Rosales.
Story by Mark Schauer
U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground