Supplying food, water, ammunition and fuel by airdropped bundles has done nothing but grow since 2005, and is likely to rise again next year, the commander of the Air Force Mobility Command said.
In 2005, there were two million pounds of airdrops, 60 million pounds were airdropped in 2010, and 90 million pounds in 2011, Gen. Raymond Johns said at a Defense Writers Group breakfast yesterday.
Another way to look at it is that 6,000 four foot-by-four-foot bundles are being dropped a month, he said.
A C-17 aircraft can carry some 50,000 pounds, while a C-130 can lift some 22,000 pounds.
Airdrops are a way to reduce the risks for the troops on the ground, the convoys. “ I would love to have all the convoys done,” he said. Airdrops also reduce “blade time” on Chinooks, he said. Helicopters are more expensive to operate per hour than Air Mobility’s fixed-wing aircraft.
Johns anticipates airdrops will only increase next year, perhaps as much as 10 percent, particularly if a lot of the personnel leaving Afghanistan come from the support infrastructure.
Since part of his job is anticipation of needs, Johns said he would need to conduct more airdrops to keep the forward operating base troops effective and supplied.
The bottom line is to be effective and efficient, because commanders want their “stuff” when and where they need it, Johns said his fleet is correctly sized for the mission. “I have enough C-17s,” he said. “I don’t need anymore.”
Airdrops have to be accurate, he said. Low and slow aircraft passes to drop bundles is accurate, but also offers a risk to the aircraft and the crew. Dropping from altitude can be done with great accuracy using GPS guidance and a parafoil, a Joint Precision Air Drop. The bundle can steer itself to the correct GPS coordinates, and land within 50 meters.
However, such airdrops are “less than one percent” of all drops, he said. Now the work centers on how to “make it more capable, more common place,” Johns said. For example, to be effective and efficient, seekers could be taken off old missiles, and then the system could be recovered and reused by those on the ground.