YUMA PROVING GROUND, Ariz.-- Mass combat jumps of paratroopers have taken place in virtually every large-scale deployment of American forces since World War II.
Useful for seizing isolated air fields deep behind enemy lines, which can then be used to receive and deploy more troops and armaments, the tactic was used successfully by American forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
As the decades have passed, the personnel parachutes American Soldiers use have advanced to meet modern requirements of design and function. The current T-11 parachute offers jumpers a slow and stable descent, especially in high winds, and can support more weight than previous parachutes, a crucial advantage for warfighters who carry robust, but heavy gear. Also, since the T-11's canopy deploys slowly and further away from the aircraft than preceding parachutes, the Army was able to increase the gross cargo weight of a C-17 aircraft by 15,000 pounds, which allows the aircraft to safely carry more fuel or cargo. A decade ago, the T-11 underwent extensive developmental testing at YPG that proved it extraordinarily capable.
"It's a complex system with a large canopy and a lot of components , and we rigged many, many malfunctions into them during developmental testing and could not make the parachute fail," recalled Keith Allen, team lead in the Aviation Systems and Electronic Test Division who has also served as an Army paratrooper. "We tied the hem shut, and it still inflated through corner vents. We put different reefing lines throughout the canopy and tried to restrict airflow inside, and it still inflated."
There is always room for improvement, however, and recently the T-11 has returned to YPG for testing of different packing configurations of both the main canopy and the reserve canopy Soldiers depend on if the main fails.
"The purpose of the test is to evaluate packing configuration changes that will ease the burden on riggers as well as improve performance," said Allen.
For nearly a year, YPG testers conducted mannequin drops several times, gathering performance data on each of the newly proposed packing configurations and comparing the results to data gathered when the current configuration of the T-11 underwent developmental testing at the proving ground in 2005. Since there is no physical instrumentation on the parachutes themselves during these tests, evaluators depend on ground-based tracking instruments for video and data of each configuration's deployment, particularly its critically important first seconds of flight. The testers used strain link systems installed on the parachute's risers to measure its peak opening force.
Currently, similar testing is being performed on the T-11's reserve canopy that could eventually result in changes to its components and packing configuration.
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. Testing personnel parachutes is a one-stop shop for customers, Allen says.
"You have to be able to rig these parachutes into malfunctions to test different scenarios," he said. "We have the institutional knowledge of how to do that, and there is really nowhere else in the Department of Defense that has that and the facilities we have. We also have all the historical data, which is another advantage."
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