Successful touchdown for airdrop missions
Airdrop missions are commonly deployed for providing humanitarian aid in areas without a runway for large transport airplanes or in crisis areas. Many systems are working in conjunction with one another in a complex and transient environment for the gentle and successful landing of payloads. The FASTWING project, Foldable, Adaptive, Steerable, Textile Wing Structure for Heavy Load Delivery, investigated technologies and advanced aerodynamic methods to allow these delivery systems to make real strides forward. Aiming at enhancing the load carrying capability of the air delivery system, a new, light airdrop platform has been designed and developed. The lighter structure, due to structural optimization and the use of aluminum alloys, allows the utilization of easily available and inexpensive emergency parachutes. The platform has a variable payload feature which is based on a ballast concept. It makes use of inexpensive materials, such as sand and steel pees, which can be easily ejected in flight with minimum risk damage on ground. Inexpensive and easily available materials, such as honeycomb cardboard, were also used for the construction of the damping system. The honeycomb cardboard turns into a moloblock easily installable on the platform through a simple, low cost manufacturing process. The platform design is suitable to dissipate the energy from vertical landing velocity. However, flight-test data proved that it also copes remarkably well with pitch and knee-down effects when landing with non-negligible horizontal velocities. The new platform concept can find a promising field of application not only on air delivery missions but also in future recovery systems, improving aircraft survivability.
