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NEW Air drop method...NOT!!!


Muff Millen
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I read the following on the AF Magazine...NEW? Did any of you folks ever do the Micronisa run out of Guam supplying the Navy CAT teams...this is the same method that we used 38 years ago. Probably with the same airframes that are doing it today.

Muff

New Airdrop Method: The Air Force now has at its disposal a new means of airdrop to resupply ground troops operating from small-sized forward bases in Afghanistan. This low-cost, low-altitude (LCLA) combat airdrop concept was tested in early February with a C-130 transport from Bagram Airfield and is now operational, as of March 1, complementing other means of aerial resupply. "This is a significant step forward in our ability to sustain those engaged in counterinsurgency operations," said Col. Keith Boone, air mobility division director in the US military's combined air and space operations center in Southwest Asia. The LCLA concept entails dropping bundles weighing between 80 pounds and 500 pounds in groups of up to four with pre-packed expendable parachutes. These bundles are smaller than those traditionally airdropped. This method offers increased accuracy over higher altitude airdrops and does not require specialized aircrew training. (Bagram report by TSgt. Joseph Kapinos)

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Yeah, before I came to IP school, we were hashing out a training plan for LCADS (now LCLA) for our guys before they headed to afghanistan. I believe our unit was the first AMC unit to do this. It's quite similiar to LAPES in that it is performed at a very low altitude. The pilot actually calls the drop (sorry navs). The chute is very much like a plastic tarp.

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Dan!

That pic Rocks! - I was still in the skycops 1992 at a remote in Turkey (Pirnclik AB). I believe Provide Comfort 1 was wrapping up and Provide Comfort II was under way. Naturally remotes where the Kurds and Turks aren't "Happy" with each other made the location one of those great "Garden Spots" to be in. My second week on station I was headed over to the cop shop when I heard a "drone" - sure enough it was a Turkish AC-47 (if thats what they called them) headed south to make trouble with the PKK/DevSol crowd. What amazed me most was how l o n g it took to pass beyond visual range. Dang remote was like an airshow anyway - F-104's, F-100's, F-4C's and D's. BUT! the one highlight we'd all hang on for was the day the T-Trot brought in grub and mail. Then the wait for the flag to go up at the post office!

Fleagle

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I read the following on the AF Magazine...NEW? Did any of you folks ever do the Micronisa run out of Guam supplying the Navy CAT teams...this is the same method that we used 38 years ago. Probably with the same airframes that are doing it today.

Muff

New Airdrop Method: The Air Force now has at its disposal a new means of airdrop to resupply ground troops operating from small-sized forward bases in Afghanistan. This low-cost, low-altitude (LCLA) combat airdrop concept was tested in early February with a C-130 transport from Bagram Airfield and is now operational, as of March 1, complementing other means of aerial resupply. "This is a significant step forward in our ability to sustain those engaged in counterinsurgency operations," said Col. Keith Boone, air mobility division director in the US military's combined air and space operations center in Southwest Asia. The LCLA concept entails dropping bundles weighing between 80 pounds and 500 pounds in groups of up to four with pre-packed expendable parachutes. These bundles are smaller than those traditionally airdropped. This method offers increased accuracy over higher altitude airdrops and does not require specialized aircrew training. (Bagram report by TSgt. Joseph Kapinos)

Muff,

LCLA is not the "Christmas Drop".

For the record, there may be some fossils who've done both!

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Reminds me of when the C-17 Nancies clamed they invented a new drop technique for MREs that was actually developed by some guys in the 7th SOS years earlier. Mike Duffie was one of the guys.

Back me up on the year Skip, if I remember right it was early 90s to drop for the Kurds?

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Operation Provide discomfort started in May 91, and I think we were dropping food on those people for the next three months.

I hate the Kurds to this day because of OPC, we were gone to the desert for seven months, got back to Germany in April 91 and three weeks later we left again for another three months to do the food drops:mad:

One of the funniest things we got to do was when we found out where the mine fields were, we would drop the bundles into the mine field and turn really quick so we could watch the morons run into the mine field to get the bundles:cool: Cant say what kind of fun the other crews had but that was one of the things our crew did, yeah so I am a bad person - oh well, I think I will survive:D (I wont mention dropping bundles into the tents, wouldn't want you folks to think I am a bad person or anything).

Mission planners were pretty stupid too, it was really fun to drop bundles of liquid milk, as soon as it would hit there was a white geyser that would shoot twenty feet straight up, guess knowledge of basic physics isn't a requirement for load planning.

I didn't know that the T1's were dropping for OPC as well, but then again it seemed like every available 130 in the world was there flying these missions.

Dan

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Reminds me of when the C-17 Nancies clamed they invented a new drop technique for MREs that was actually developed by some guys in the 7th SOS years earlier. Mike Duffie was one of the guys.

Back me up on the year Skip, if I remember right it was early 90s to drop for the Kurds?

TRIADS was indeed invented by the LMs at 7 SOS and the Aerial Port SQ there at Rein Mein in the mid-90s.

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Reminds me of when the C-17 Nancies clamed they invented a new drop technique for MREs that was actually developed by some guys in the 7th SOS years earlier. Mike Duffie was one of the guys.

Back me up on the year Skip, if I remember right it was early 90s to drop for the Kurds?

yep Talon 2 crews and I believe Duffie was one of the loads -- I will ck and let ya know.

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  • 5 months later...

Everything old is new again!

AmericancargoplaneC47droppingsuppli.jpg

YEP! Way back in early 1942 when 21st and 22nd Transport Squadrons started dropping to the Aussies on the Kokoda Track in New Guinea, they were making high velocity drops without parachutes. And there weren't no such thing as SOF back then either - it was called COMBAT! The USAF likes to keep reinventing the wheel and claiming they've come up with something new.

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