The U.S. Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s (AFLCMC) mobility and training directorate at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio said that AFLCMC has tested an escape system drogue parachute for the Advanced Concept Ejection Seat 5 (ACES 5) for the Air Force’s T-7A Red Hawk trainer by Boeing [BA].
RTX‘s [RTX] Collins Aerospace makes the ACES 5, which is to reduce “overall ejection-related major injuries to less than 5 percent and ejection-related spinal injuries to less than 1 percent” and which “features enhanced head, neck, arm and leg flail prevention, in addition to a load-compensating catapult based on the occupant’s weight,” the company has said.
AFLCMC put the drogue chute for the T-7A’s ACES 5 through four tests at the Collins Aerospace-owned and operated Hurricane Mesa Test Facility in Utah last Nov. 2 and 14, the center said on Jan. 19.
While drogue chutes have been to slow ejections from aircraft traveling more than 250 knots per hour before the deployment of the aircrew parachutes, the T-7A drogue chute is to improve safety at lower speeds.
Dan Mountjoy, AFLCMC’s T-7A crew system lead engineer, said in the Jan. 19 AFLCMC statement that the “the ejection seat configuration we’re going to be using on the T-7A has not been used on any other platform or for the full anthropometric range of occupants.”
“It’s going to need to safely eject pilots that weigh between 103 and 245 pounds,” he said.
AFLCMC said that the T-7A system program office worked with Collins Aerospace and Boeing “to gather important data at speeds below 250 knots and ensure the system will properly operate and supply the necessary drag to improve stability during the slower speed ejections.”
The center said that it plans to conduct a fully integrated dynamic sled test of the T-7A’s ACES 5 next month “to gather final pieces of information needed to solidify any system updates before implementation and resumption of its qualification program.”
The Air Force has said that Maj. Bryce Turner from the 416th Flight Test Squadron at Edwards AFB, Calif., became the first Air Force pilot to fly the T-7A during a flight last June 28 from Boeing’s St. Louis site.
Advanced Pilot Trainer: Program Success Hinges on Better Managing Its Schedule and Providing Oversight, a Government Accountability Office report last May, questioned the safety of the ACES 5 for the T-7A and said that such concerns delayed Air Force approval of “full or limited Military Flight Release” for Air Force pilots to fly the trainer (GAO-23-106205).