Cargo drops on rise in effort to avoid IEDs - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

Cargo drops on rise in effort to avoid IEDs

The Air Force is airdropping more bullets, bottles of water and Meals, Ready-to-Eat than bombs in operations over Afghanistan and Iraq.

In the past year, airmen sent 16.6 million pounds of supplies parachuting to the ground, according to Air Forces Central — more than double the airdrop total for 2007.

At the same time, the number of bombs released decreased about 16 percent, from 5,019 to 4,220.

The Air Force doesn’t break out separate figures for airdrops over Iraq and Afghanistan, but airmen said airdrops over Iraq are rare.

Airmen involved in the airdrops said the increase is driven by several factors:

* A growing number of soldiers and Marines in Afghanistan are stationed at forward bases difficult to reach by truck even when the weather is good.

* Insurgents’ rising use of roadside bombs makes it safer to airdrop supplies.

* Ground commanders realize airdrops are accurate enough to reach outposts, even in difficult terrain.

“We do our job so effectively to support troops in the field that commanders realize we can deliver to them,” said Maj. Ben Cameron, chief of tactics for Air Forces Central’s Air Mobility Division and a C-130 pilot deployed from the 30th Airlift Squadron in Cheyenne, Wyo.

Airdrop requests are made for anywhere from 15 days in advance to “within minutes” during critical situations, Cameron said. Air Forces Central’s Combined Air Operations Center assigns the missions as part of the daily air tasking order. On average, sorties are split evenly between C-130s and C-17 Globemasters.

Capt. Race Steinfort, a C-17 pilot from the 16th Airlift Squadron, Charleston Air Force Base, S.C., deployed to the Persian Gulf region, said he and his crews are flying many more airdrop missions than during previous deployments.

On past tours, the squadron flew one or two airdrop missions weekly, Steinfort said. Now, they expect to fly seven to eight missions.

To prepare for airdrops, crews boosted their training at Charleston.

“We put a whole lot more emphasis on it,” Steinfort said.

Long-range special delivery

One C-17 can carry 40 airdrop pallets and release cargo to five drop zones. As a long-range transport, the C-17 can take on cargo thousands of miles from Afghanistan and airdrop the goods to outposts without needing to touch down, the captain said. The C-17 also can land in Afghanistan, pick up more airdrop bundles and release those on the flight home.

When a C-17 flies an airdrop mission, the plane takes off with a larger than normal crew, Steinfort said. Instead of the standard crew of two pilots and one loadmaster, the plane will carry three or four pilots and two or more loadmasters. The additional crew members are needed to prepare for airdrops that can come minutes apart.

Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan is home to many of the C-130s flying airdrop missions.

Because airdrops are a standard mission for C-130 crews, there has not been an increase in pre-deployment training, said Maj. Tim Mewes, a navigator deployed to Bagram from the West Virginia Air National Guard’s 130th Airlift Squadron.

The C-130 crews at Bagram have seen their airdrop missions grow from one to two weekly to three to four. Although airdrops can be made from as high as 25,000 feet, crews prefer to see the drop zone and they’ll fly below clouds to achieve that, said Maj. Scott Lowe, a 130th pilot.

Afghanistan’s high mountains and unpredictable weather pose a challenge, Lowe added — it is common for the C-130s to drop cargo while flying below surrounding ridgelines.

CDS vs. GPS

Air Force transports use two pallet systems for airdrops.

The Container Delivery System is the standard, airmen said — the aircrew determines where and when to release the cargo based on altitude and winds above the target zone. Sometimes loadmasters release a weather sensor in advance of the airdrop that radios conditions back to the crew.

Once the parachutes open, there is no way to change the pallets’ descent.

A second method involves pallets guided by Global Positioning System satellite signals, which have become available over the past two years. The aircrew programs the landing-zone coordinates into each pallet’s guidance system. Once the parachute opens, the guidance system steers the pallet.

GPS is expensive and used relatively rarely, airmen said. The Army places the price of each GPS Joint Precision Aerial Delivery System at $50,000 a pallet — a hefty price for a device that might take months to get back to a cargo hub.

Nonetheless, the Air Force wants aircrews prepared to use GPS-guided pallets.

At the Air Force’s largest C-130 hub, Little Rock Air Force Base, Ark., all aircrews learn how to do GPS airdrops before deploying, said Tech. Sgt. Elvis Hendrix, an evaluator loadmaster stationed with the 41st Airlift Squadron. A year ago, only a handful of crew members went through the training before deploying.

The system is not difficult to learn, Hendrix said. Loadmasters spend one day on academic and ground training and then fly one or two missions to become qualified.