Computational Analysis of a Towed Jumper During Static Line Airborne Operations: A Parametric Study Using Various Airdrop Configurations

This study examines CREATE-AV/Kestrel simulation software to model a towed jumper scenario using standard aircraft settings to quantify paratrooper stability and risk of contact during static line airborne operations. The focus areas of this study include a review of the technical build-up, which includes aircraft, paratrooper and static line modeling, plus preliminary functional checkouts executed to verify simulation performance. This research and simulation development effort is driven by the need to meet the analysis demands required to support US Army Personnel Airdrop with static line length studies and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Joint Airdrop Capability Syndicate (JACS) with airdrop interoperability assessments. Each project requires the use of various aircraft types, static line lengths and exit procedures. To help meet this need and establish a baseline proof of concept (POC) simulation, separate simulation setups were built with a towed jumper from a C-130J and C-17 using a 20-ft static line to support US Army Personnel Airdrop efforts. Concurrently, the JACS is requesting analysis to support interoperability testing to help qualify the T-11 parachute from an Airbus A400M Atlas aircraft, operated by NATO nations. Due to the lack of an available A400M geometry, the C-17 was used to demonstrate the POC, and plans to substitute the geometry are in order when it becomes available. The results of a nominal Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation run using a C-17 and C-130J will be reviewed with a sample of the output to help characterize performance differences for the aircraft settings selected. The US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Soldier Center (DEVCOM-SC) Aerial Delivery Division (ADD) has partnered with the US Air Force Academy (USAFA) High Performance Computing Research Center (HPCRC) to enable these Modeling and Simulation (M&S) capabilities to support the Warfighter and NATO airdrop interoperability efforts.