Bang On

Testing time

OC 84WG GPCAPT Carl Newman explained that initial scoping around the JPADS capability was undertaken in 2008, with a training capability being ultimately acquired and tested at Woomera in the middle of this year. Early testing yieldedencouraging results, with the system demonstrating its ability to land a one tonne payload, dropped from over 20,000ft within 25m of its intended target.

GPCAPT Newman explained to Australian Aviation that, as its name implies, introduction of the JPADS training capability has been jointly undertaken with Army.

“The beauty with the Defence Force’s air drop capability is that it is incredibly joint. Army is responsible for preparing all the loads and maintaining all of the air drop equipment and Air Force obviously provides the aircraft and aircrew. We have a joint unit called Air Movement Training and Development Unit and it has Air Force and Army personnel in it. Army was quite involved in the 2008 trials and did a lot of the work, stores clearance and releasing load from aircraft, so they’re well aware of the capability and indeed our Special Forces worked with their UK and US compatriots and understand the system quite integrally. ”

How it works

Mission planning software, installed on a ruggedised laptop, enables aircrews to plan and initiate release of cargo at a precise computed air release point (CARP). The system uses inputs such as aircraft position, altitude, airspeed, heading, ground speed, course and a range of other data, which are then used to guide the load to its impact point.

“Inside the aircraft, because the load is shielded from the satellite transmission of GPS signals, the aircraft has been modified to retransmit a GPS signal to the load while it’s still in the aircraft. The crews also have some software and a computer that helps them work out where is an accurate release point and load that information into the guidance unit, for example, the winds it will expect while under the canopy driving to the dropaircraft, it won’t talk to the aircraft again, it will set its GPS position by looking at the satellites and will automatically adjust its flightpath. ”

Woomera

The vast expanses of the Woomera test range were visited in July by an 84WG C-130J, which was there to test the viability of the system in Australian conditions.

“We took a J-model to test procedures and our aircraft more so than the stores clearance of the load itself. We were testing the training that the crews had received, testing the Army system of building a load and putting it on the aircraft and making sure our procedures were suitable and appropriate to dispatch this precision type load with all of the data in the guidance unit,” GPCAPT Newman said.

“We did a one-tonne drop from 20,500ft in the Woomera range area – it went out the back, all went smoothly, dispatched from the aircraft perfectly. It achieved the signals it needed, which guided the unit to land within approximately 25m of the intended point of impact. It was probably ‘under canopy’ for 20 minutes subject to the variables of wind and still maintained a phenomenal accuracy when it landed. ”

Under canopy with a mild wind, we’d be about 8km away.

Just as GPS guidance, and the resulting increase in accuracy has reduced the amount of kinetic weapons required to kill a given target, so too with air drops – more accurate delivery means achieving more with less.

GPCAPT Newman highlighted the example of the Wing’s humanitarian assistance mission over northern Iraq in 2014, when it delivered unguided food parcels to Yazidis fleeing imminent massacre by Islamic State.

“At Mt Sinjar we used container delivery systems. We were delivering one tonne loads, unguided, in one pass. We could do that with JPADS, but with precision, the types of stores we deliver would only need one or two of those loads at any one time to deliver that sort of effect to those in the field. ” And just as in munitions delivery, the ballistics concept of circular error probable, or CEP, applies to air dropped loads. “We look at a 90 per cent CEP for air drop loads and we create a drop zone that will mean for any type of flight profile the drop zone is large enough for 90 per cent for the loads to land on.

So, the CEP for JPADS is around the 20 to 30m mark depending what figure you use. ” At this stage, loads of one-tonne represent the upper end of JPADS air dropped cargo, with vehicles such as the Bushmaster some way off from falling from the sky. “We can drop equipment that can fit within a standard A22 container. Things like an engine block we can throw out.

Large vehicles are on a specialised platform and are delivered via a very different system. The US is looking at precision air drop capability for those larger systems but we’re not in that space just yet. ” The ability to deliver loads by air, precisely, is another step in the program to expand the utility of the C-130J, as GPCAPT Newman explained. “We’re putting a lot of effort into transitioning and transforming the capability of C-130J. The precision air drop capability and the types of communications equipment that we’ve installed lately is a shift away from its traditional role of strategic airlift, and we’re now increasing the number of arrows in its quiver and the number of options it can provide.

It’s a really exciting time for us.

JPADS is one of those arrows. And we’re pushing a lot of work into the capability that the crews can offer and that the aircraft has. ” It doesn’t take much to appreciate how useful special forces, operating covertly behind enemy lines, would find the ability of a C-130J or C-17A to push out a pallet of vital supplies at up to 25,000ft which would then, wind permitting, glide no less than eightkilometres before landing within 25m of its intended recipients.

“The stronger the wind, the further away we can drop the load. Under canopy with a mild wind, we’d be about 8km away, using the drive capability of the chute itself it could be easily 15 to 20km from point of impact. It all depends on the performance of the parachute. As they evolve, we could be dropping further away. ” For now, 84WG and the RAAF Base Richmond-based Air Movement Training and Development Unit has acquired the requisite amount of JPADS training units to keep crews current. The benefits of highly accurate air drops are manifold, from the pinpoint delivery of relief supplies to stranded quake survivors to a desperately needed load of ammunition in the middle of a firefight. GPCAPT Newman explains that, as appealing as the capability is to the air mobility community, the ultimate decision on JPADS rests with Army, “What we want to do, as a minimum, is to be able to drop a coalition prepared precision load, if that was required. It improves our interoperability with our US and UK partners, but we are in discussions with Army, and Army is considering whether this is a capability that they want for their land forces. If they do, then Army will be the lead in identifying procurement required for an operational ADF capability. ”