Advancing the Design Space of a Tactical, Air-Launched Balloon

In areas of denied airspace or inaccessible terrain, tactical, air-launched balloons offer a low-cost, rapidly deployed alternative over manned aircraft and drones to provide command and control and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. With the incorporation of engineering design tools, this effort explored advanced designs of air-launched balloons from a CH-47 Chinook helicopter. Based upon demonstrated feasibility, the technical challenge of preventing the interaction of the balloon and parachute of a palletized system was explored with the incorporation of a telescoping mast. Analysis of deformation and moment caused by the mast showed negligible material strain but a relatively large turning moment of 14.4 kN-m that brought into question the stability of this design. An alternate deployment technique that eliminates the parachute and increases crewmember safety proposes a winched system out of the rear ramp of a CH-47 that is filled by internally loaded gas tanks. Preliminary analysis of the stress on the balloon material in the freestream and downwash environment as well as the rapid inflation process validate the airworthiness of such a technique to meet preliminary Army regulatory requirements. The deployment process was modeled in such a way that the design can minimize any potential of balloon-rotor interaction during the inflation and separation process. While deemed feasible, the design space still offers technical challenges such as managing the inflation force, understanding the impulse stress on the balloon due to its oscillatory response in the freestream, and packaging.