The US Army will later this year trial four parachutes fitted with global positioning system technology at the Natick Soldier Center in Massachusetts.
The Parafinder has been developed by EADS Defence and Security Systems and uses satellite navigation, in-visor direction display and manual control systems to enable soldiers dropped outside a theatre of operations to fly their way to a precise landing spot.
German special forces will use Parafinder from 2006; Austrian and Australian forces are also monitoring its development. US forces became interested in the system after last year's demonstration at the Precision Airdrop Technology Conference and Demonstration event in Arizona.
The Parafinder has a cargo equivalent called Paralander that can deploy vehicles weighing up to 6t. Parafinder programme manager Jurgen Windl says the Paralander system "is an unmanned air vehicle without an engine. It is at an earlier stage of development and the 1t version will be ready in 2005. We have a patent for a dynamic flair manoeuvre that reduces its speed from 7m/s (23ft/s) to 2m/s per second. This is important for heavy vehicles."
Both systems are compatible with GPS and the European Galileo system and include an altimeter with a pre-programmed wind model. The cargo variant also has a "sort of autopilot", according to Windl, and uses an electric motor actuator system for directing the parachute.
Development of the parachute systems began in 2000 and Windl says the contract for 118 Parafinder parachutes for German soldiers, signed in November 2003, is worth €7.45 million ($8.8 million).
The Paralander system, for which Windl expects to gain a procurement contract from Germany in 2005, would be delivered in its medium 3t and heavy 6t versions in 2006 and 2007, respectively.
ROB COPPINGER / LONDON
Source: Flight International