Bosnia. 20,000 feet. A SAM forces CPT Scott O'Grady to eject from his burning F-16 Fighting Falcon. He describes his descent:

"I came down from a pretty high altitude....We've roughly estimated that it took about twenty-five minutes from the time I ejected for me to hit solid ground. It was a long, long ride. It lasted forever. Forever. I was thinking, 'Geez, lets get this done', because it was really windy. I knew that sooner or later I had to hit the ground and start that episode of being in a hostile territory, trying to survive and evade, and hopefully get rescued."

Most are unaware that the Desert Storm air campaign was fought at MEDIUM altitudes to evade small arms, light auto-cannon and shoulder fired SAM ADA systems. An aircraft hit at medium altitude (above 5,000 feet) that results in the pilot ejecting will have him descending under canopy at 15 feet per second for 5 minutes or more---plenty of time for the enemy to see him and marshal ground search teams to capture him--or for us to fly in and "snatch" him.

Reading USAF Colonel Jack Broughton's book, Thud Ridge about flying F-105 Thunderchiefs "Downtown" during the Vietnam war, you cannot help but to see his point that many died needlessly after being shot down and all we could do was helplessly watch their parachutes descend to the ground and enemy capture, murder or years of torture in their pow camps. While many were saved by extremely courageous ground pick-ups by USAF helicopters and A-1 Skyraider pilots, many died "So that others may live". The large, daylight rescue of Cpt. Scott O'Grady in war-torn Bosnia was one missile away from disaster, as the single-ship infiltration at night is realistically the only way we can recover men on the ground on the sensor and weapons swept battlefields of the 21st Century. We were very blessed that the Bosnian Serbs couldn't locate O'Grady thanks to his long drift time under canopy and his SERE school-learned evasiveness to use him as "bait" to lure in and ambush rescue forces as the Vietnamese often did.

One of the insights of Colonel Broughton's book was that there should be some way to "snatch" these pilots while they are descending under parachutes before they reach the ground in the first place.

For years, before spy satellite photos were sent by digital link to the ground, actual film capsules were ejected from space and as they floated under a parachute a C-130 Hercules transport flew along and "snatched" the film capsule. We even recently snagged a returning satellite data capsule using a helicopter. Retired USAF Colonel Jerry Thigpen reveals in his book on Combat Talon history, Praetorian Starships that the All-American Company that made the Personnel Pick-Up System used this know-how to snatch satellites:

"All American Aviation did develop a successful engagement system, however, in the late 1960s. The follow-on system enabled C-130-equipped aircraft to snag satellite packages in midair as they parachuted to earth from orbit."

We also launched FireBee drones (UAVs) from DC-130s and recovered them from mid-air by helicopter

The question is why not have a very agile AFSOC "MC-22" 0r "AV-22" Pave Low IV tilt-rotor aircraft accompany AF strike missions for the sole purpose of swooping in and "snatching" the downed pilot's parachute and reeling him in BEFORE he reaches the ground?

Mid-Air Recovery System (MARS)

http://youtu.be/aWJCDL3n3dI

In the late 1970s/80s BioTechnology in Virginia researched such techniques and found them feasible. Pioneer Aerospace actually conducted tests. We should perfect a mid-air recovery system today before there is another "O'Grady" or Desert Storm Air Campaign.

The ideal aircraft for MARS would be one that can slow to a hover to match up with a descending parachute or once snatched can land slowly by a hover with the aircrewman if for some reason he couldn't be reeled in. This aircraft would have a Pararescueman (PJ) with medical skills onboard to "reel him in" like on the MC-130 Combat Talon Is with Fulton STAR systems. Lastly, this aircraft should be a jet capable of high subsonic speed to fly as part of a jet strike package to be there if an attack jet pilot gets shot down for MARS retrieval.

The problem is no current aircraft in the world fits this without modification. The MV-22 "Osprey" is hover-capable and has a rear ramp and cargo area for a PJ and recovery but is too slow to fly along with a jet strike package, though it could fly ahead and stay on station nearby. Another problem with the V-22 is that is unsafe to fly at all...if your burnt to a crisp in a fiery crash you ain't gonna be rescuing anyone. The MC-130 flies faster--especially if a "J" model propfan equipped version were procured, has the rear ramp and the technology used to recover spy satellite film capsule parachutes already exists, though they cannot hover, thus requiring greater pilot skill. The S-3 Viking that used to be flown from Navy carriers is a jet with high subsonic speeds that could be modified to do MARS by removing its sonobuoy tubes and building an open area and rear access opening for reeling the snatched aircrewman in. The AV-8B and the future STOVL F-35 JSF can fly attack jet profiles and hover---if GRIER pods perhaps holding a PJ or reel in by remote control--and with MARS were created, they could look like all the other jets in the strike package until a pilot retrieval was needed. In fact with a GRIER MARS system ANY U.S. fighter or helicopter that can accept a bomb rack could become MARS-capable. If the pilot couldn't be reeled in for whatever the reason he would be flown to safer airspace and released with a new parachute deploying to supercede the one caught in the MARS apparatus.

BUDDYHOOK^TM: Every Fighter Plane a Rescue Plane

Legendary inventor Robert Fulton tested and perfected his SkyHook system using his own Stearman light plane's left wing to carry the whiskers to snatch tethered balloons.

So why not have EVERY fighter plane equipped with STAR whiskers on a wingtip so if a buddy pilot gets shot down and ejects, his parachute can be snagged by an already-on-the-scene aircraft and he could be towed back to a safe area for release?

slideshare.net/1st_TSG_Airborne/buddyhook-midairrecovery-by-towing-v20

Buddyhook: Mid-Air-Recovery by Towing v2.0 from 1st_TSG_Airborne

Fulton Surface-To-Air (STAR) SkyHook: Still a Great Idea that the current Cowardly Generation has Given up on

youtube.com/watch?v=dekJ2Ip7koo

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PErEsNhDmo8

This is a short clip. The entire video is 30 min. For more details go to:

militaryvideo.com/store/cfm

This video documents the use of the Fulton Recovery System by C-130 Hercules aircraft at Edwards AFB in 1966 and at Phang Rang AB in 1968.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLoz0H-44e8

BEST HISTORICAL REFERENCE:

USAF Colonel (R) Jerry Thigpen's

Praetorian Starships

Message Pick-Up to Glider Pick-Up

WWII U.S. Army Air Force Glider Aerial Retrieval System

Compiled by Leon B. Spencer, former WWII Glider Pilot

The architects of the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) glider program determined in the spring 1942 that the large troop and cargo carrying gliders under development were simply too expensive to be abandoned after one combat mission. The cheapest unit price for a 15-place CG-4A was $15,580, while some companies charged much more. The fields and pastures in which gliders landed were usually too small and the terrain too uneven for a [powered] plane [with wheeled landing gear] to land and retrieve the gliders. Another means of recovery had to be found. To find an answer to their problem the Air Force turned to Richard C. duPont, a 1930s national glider soaring champion and the president of All American Aviation of Wilmington, Delaware. Several years earlier, DuPont's company had developed an aerial retrieval system to pick up U.S. Postal Department mail pouches from the ground by an aircraft on the fly, and had demonstrated to U.S. Air Corps officials at Wright Field, Ohio, on 18 July and 22-28 September 1941 that aerial retrieval of gliders was feasible.

The aerial retrieval of objects from the ground was not new in aviation. The marines were using a rudimentary aerial pickup system as early as 1927. The system was simple but functional. A wire with a weight on the end was trailed behind a surplus World War I de Havilland single-engine D.H. 4 biplane. As it flew over the ground station the trailing wire engaged a rope loop suspended between two poles to which was attached a leather pouch, probably containing dispatches.

In 1939, Richard duPont teamed with Dr. Lytle S. Adams, a dentist/inventor from Morgantown, West Virginia, and formed the All American Aviation Company in Wilmington, Delaware, duPont's hometown. Dr. Adams had designed an aerial retrieval system in 1938 but lacked the financial resources to develop and market his product and needed a partner with money. Mr. duPont, a member of the wealthy E. I. DuPont family, was the perfect choice. Their new company performed a number of experiments with Adam's system and made some improvements. On 12 May 1939, All American began operating on a demonstration basis two mail routes extending from East Coast cities along strings of small towns through the Appalachian Mountains to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The company used a specially equipped single-engine Stinson SR-10C monoplane to pick up U.S. Postal Service mail pouches on the fly at rural towns having no airport. To satisfy the requirements of the Postal Service All-American Aviation fitted its aircraft with the company's AAS-4 internal cable winch with a braking mechanism. A cable ran through guides to an external boom mounted on the fuselage and then to a hook at the end of the boom. The system functioned much like a fishing rod and reel. The pickup airplane would fly low (approximately 20 feet above the ground) over the pickup station and hook a nylon loop stretched between two poles approximately 12 feet above the ground. Just as the hook snagged the loop the pilot would pour on the power and climb away at a fairly steep angle, dragging the mailbag behind the plane on the cable. At the moment the hook made contact the winch would feed out cable to absorb the inertial energy of the pouch weight. The operator would then retrieve the pouch by rewinding the steel cable.

The aerial retrieval demonstrations conducted by AM July and September 1941 used the Model AAS-4 pickup winch installed in a company Stinson SR-10C high-wing monoplane. The Stinson successfully snatched a 500 pound gross weight "Midwest Utility" glider containing a weighted pilot dummy from the ground. Following the demonstrations, AM issued a report proposing that they could build a system to pick up heavier gliders.

During further tests in 1942, All American Aviation used the Stinson SR-10C to successfully snatch a two-place, Schweizer XTG-3 military training glider from the ground at Clinton County Army Air Field (CCAAF), Wilmington, Ohio. Mr. duPont himself piloted the glider. As a safety feature the company aircraft was equipped with cutting knives mounted in front of the wheels in the event that the tow rope should snag on them. During further demonstrations a propeller-less Piper Cub was successfully snatched from the ground. That same year glider aerial retrieval demonstrations were conducted at CCAAF with the larger and heavier 9-place Waco XCG-3 troop/cargo glider. A twin-engine, Douglas B-23 Dragon bomber equipped with the newly developed AAA Model 40 system was used as the pickup aircraft. Like duPont's Stinson, it too was equipped with cutting knives mounted forward of the landing gear. Colonel Frederick Dent, head of the Glider Branch at Wright Field, piloted the XCG-3 for the first test in December 1942. It proved successful. Army Air Force contracts to AM were let in 1942 to provide pickup equipment initially for training gliders, and finally for gliders weighing from 8,000 to 16,000 pounds. A new Model 80 heavy-duty pick up system was subsequently designed incorporating improved braking systems that made use of a "time delay" function where the first several drum rotations had a reduced braking force to allow the drum to accelerate without applying high cable loads, and then the final brake force was gradually applied until the preset line tension was established. Much of the credit for the successful development of the M-80 system belongs to the AAF's Captain Chester Decker, who first tested its military application and who taught its use at Laurinburg-Maxton AAB, North Carolina, to hundreds of power pilots.

Initial flight testing of the M-80 system was conducted at AAA's DuPont Airport in Wilmington, Delaware, in the first half of 1943, but subsequent primary testing was switched to CCAAF. An 1821 foot nylon tow rope, 15/16 inches in diameter, was initially used for the Waco CG-4A tests. One end of the tow rope was connected to the nose of the glider, while the other end was connected to a closed loop of nylon rope, 80 feet in circumference, which was draped over the top of two 12 foot stanchions spaced 20 feet apart and positioned ahead of and slightly to the right of the glider.

The use of tow ropes made of nylon fiber developed by the E. I. DuPont Company greatly enhanced glider "snatch pickups." This fiber, when woven into a rope, was elastic. It would stretch 25% to 30% of its length and thus absorb much of the shock as the glider became airborne. The rope would then return to its original length. Because of this characteristic, the average acceleration for pickup was only 7/10 of one G, which according to AAF Manual No. 5-17, lasted about 6.2 seconds. This is significant if you consider that pilots catapulted from an aircraft carrier experience 2 G's. The glider would usually become airborne in no more than 200 feet.

Twin-engined Douglas C-47 transports were the primary aircraft used to test the Model 80C pickup system. Several were retrofitted with the device for the tests. The M-80C Glider Pick-up Mechanism, as it was officially designated by the AAF, consisted of a controllable, motor-driven, energy absorbing drum containing 10003 feet of flexible 5/8" steel cable, twin pulleys, torque tube, hydraulic cylinder and explosive cable cutter controls. The mechanism was bolted to the floor on the left side of the cabin about six feet from the front bulkhead of the aircraft. The reel was equipped with friction clutch that could be adjusted for different glider weights and speeds. The amount of cable played out was directly proportional to the weight of the glider and the nature of the acceleration of the glider after the pickup. Under most circumstances the cable pay-out was usually less than 600 feet. The maximum designed load of the pick-up unit was 8,000 pounds.

Modifications evident from the outside of a C-47 included a plug-style access panel mounted within the aircraft's door frame and an adjustable, exterior mounted, 20 foot wooden arm on the left side of the fuselage that could be raised or lowered electrically. At the end of the arm was a polished steel hook. Steel cable from the energy absorbing drum was secured to the hook. In the stowed position, the hook, arm and cable assembly was secured to the fuselage forward of the cargo door. It was accessible through the open cargo door. The pole was held in a level position for takeoffs and landings, and was adjustable so it could be locked down at a 45 degree angle during glider retrieval. In addition to the normal crew of a pilot, copilot, crew chief and radio operator, the retrieval aircraft required a winch operator. The aircraft crew chief and radio operator assisted the winch operator if necessary. The winch operator's function was to properly set the pickup drum clutch snubbing adjustment, which was based on the glider's weight and the aircraft's proposed speed at the instant of the cable hook/ glider rope loop engagement. The drum manufacturer (General Aviation) provided a chart with recommended snubber settings for various glider weights/aircraft contact speeds, etc. The shock of the initial contact with the nylon rope was the critical moment that placed the greatest stress on the flexible steel cable. At the very instant of "snatch" the winch operator's judgment received its most critical test. A misjudgment could result in a broken cable and possible severe injury to the operator or damage to the aircraft, or both.

When retrieving a glider the tow plane approached the pick-up station at a 45 degree angle about twenty feet above the terrain at 130 to 145 miles per hour IAS, depending on the gross weight of the glider. At the moment the tow rope was snagged by the aircraft's trailing hook the winch drum began to feed out cable rapidly, then more slowly as the brake took effect. Some of the initial shock was absorbed by the unwinding cable and the elasticity of the nylon tow rope. In a matter of about seven seconds3 the glider would accelerate from 0 to 120 miles per hour lAS and would become airborne in as little as sixty feet. At the same time the extra weight of the glider slowed the tow plane to about 105 mph. Slowly, the cable drum braked to a full stop and then reversed. The glider, now 500 or more feet behind the tow plane, was slowly winched in to the tow rope hook.

In July 1943, Major Louis B. Magid, Jr., on the staff of the Airborne Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, tested the AAA glider retrieval system and its associated technique. In these tests a C-47 flying at 140 miles per hour snatched a glider off the ground Within seconds from the time the C-47's towhook seized the glider rope slung between two upright poles, the glider was in the air and flying at 120 miles per hour. Tests were also conducted with gliders equipped with skids only as take-off gear. Major Magid reported that the engines of the tow plane showed less strain during the pickup than during a conventional take-off.

While the year 1943 was one of great achievement for the aerial pickup technology, it was a sad year for the AAA Company because of the death of its founder, Richard C. duPont. He had accepted an assignment as a special assistant to the Army Air Force chief, General H. H. Arnold, in June 1943, and was tasked to oversee the Army's glider program. At March Field, California, on 11 September 1943, while flying aboard a Bowlus XCG-16 test glider it entered into a spin shortly after being released from the tow plane. DuPont bailed out, but his parachute failed to open fully and he was killed. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal by the AAF posthumously in recognition of his services to the war effort.

Once the aerial retrieval system became operational glider pilot students at the Glider Crew Training Center at Laurinburg-Maxton Army Air Base were required to participate in at least one snatch pickup as first pilot, and one as copilot. As the need for gliders became more acute at glider pilot training bases it was not uncommon for CG-4As to be snatched rather than shipped from the manufacturers' plants. This was frequently the case at the Ford Plant at Iron Mountain, Michigan; the Gibson Refrigerator Plant at Greenville, Michigan; and the Waco Plant at Troy, Ohio.

Glider snatch pick-up was employed by the USAAF in the European and China-Burma-India (CBI) theaters during World War II. Pick-up teams retrieved downed gliders from the battlefields of France, Burma, Holland and Germany. Extant records note that thirteen gliders were retrieved from Normandy, France, two hundred fifty-six (256) from Holland following Operation MARKET-GARDEN, and one hundred forty-eight (148) from Germany following Operation VARSITY.

On 21 June 1944, Captain Roy Sousley and ten other glider pilots from the 437^th Troop Carrier Group were sent to Normandy to begin preparations for the retrieval of the gliders used in the invasion. Sousley had orders from Ninth Air Force to conduct a survey of the entire American airhead area and then send back to England a report on how many gliders could be retrieved by using the aerial snatch method. The results were far worse than anticipated. Every one of the Horsas and all but 13 of the 292 CG-4As were found to be either located in heavily treed fields inaccessible to the snatch plane, or damaged beyond repair by rough landings, German shelling, or vandals, some of them American Soldiers. The 13 CG-4As were snatched out of Normandy on 25 June and returned to England.

Reacting to pressure applied by General Arnold, who had been greatly displeased with glider recovery operations in Normandy and Southern France, General Brereton undertook a vigorous effort to retrieve as many gliders as possible from Holland. Between 25 September and 1 October, three repair teams of 150 glider mechanics each were sent to Holland to salvage the damaged American gliders that were scattered all over the liberated portions of that country. The weather during that period was horrible. On 17 October, a storm blew across Holland, wrecking 115 gliders that had been completely repaired and readied for aerial snatch pickup. By mid-December, when salvage operations ended, only 281 American gliders had been snatched out of Holland. .

On 22 March 1945, an historic MEDEVAC glider mission took place in Europe. Two CG-4As landed in a clearing near the Remagen, Germany bridgehead to evacuate twenty-five severely injured American and German casualties. Each glider was fitted with six stretchers suspended by nylon straps on each side of the cargo area. Once loaded the gliders were successfully snatched from their landing site by a C-47 transport and flown to a military hospital in France.

An Army nurse from the 816^th Medical Evacuation Squadron, Lieutenant Suella V. Barnard (or Bernard), volunteered to accompany and care for the wounded enroute. She became the only nurse to participate in a glider combat mission during WWII.

A second high profile glider mission was carried out following the crash of a C-47 in Hidden Valley, New Guinea, on 13 May 1945. Two Paratrooper medics jumped at the crash site five days later to care for the injured survivors, two Soldiers and a WAC corporal while rescue plans were formulated. It was decided that the safest method of rescue was to land a CG-4A glider at site ten miles below the crash site and retrieve it by snatch pickup. On 20 May, Captain Cecil E. Walter, Jr. and eight additional Paratroopers jumped below the survivor's campsite to locate and clear a site for the glider to land. It took three trips to extract the survivors and the rescue team from the valley. This remarkable rescue mission is fully described in Colonel Edward T. Imparato's book, Rescue from Shangri-La, published in 1997 by Turner Publishing Company of Paducah, Kentucky.

Once the retrieval of a single glider was perfected experiments began at CCAAF to retrieve two gliders with a single tow plane. In this operation, two gliders were properly lined up with two separate tow ropes and two separate ground stations for holding each pickup loop. The C-47 tow ship picked up the first glider and then circled back and snatched the second glider. The difficulty in the double retrieval was the transfer of the first tow rope from the winch pickup cable to the normal tow point on the tail of the tow plane. This was necessary so the winch cable and pickup hook could be reset on the boom in order to pick up the second glider.

On the double pickup the following method was used to remove the first glider pickup loop from the hook and transfer it to the tow release on the tail of the C-47; First, one end of a doubled nylon rope was tied off to a tie down ring in the floor of the C-47. The cable winch then reeled the pickup loop near the door of the C-47. A gaff hook was used to insert the free end of the doubled line through the pickup loop and bring the free end of the doubled rope back into the door. The free end of the doubled rope was then hooked to the working end of a double block and tackle. The block & tackle was used to pull the pickup rope loop and pickup hook to the edge of the door of the C-47. The free end of the short doubled rope was secured to another tie down ring and the block & tackle removed. A pre-attached short tow rope running to the tow socket of the tow plane tail was connected to the loop and the pickup hook removed from the loop. To release the tow rope from the short double holding rope and allow the tow rope to go to the tow socket, the double rope was chopped through with a fire axe. The pickup hook was reset in the pickup arm and the second glider was picked up and towed on the winch cable. The procedure took less than fifteen minutes.

The C-47 for the first test was flown by Lt. Lee Jett, with Louie Winters as crew chief, and other CCAAF enlisted men handling the winch and associated operations. Lt. John Bryant piloted the first glider snatched, and Lt. Joseph Mollinary piloting the second glider.

See Attachments A through F for a pictorial view of the USAAF Glider Aerial Retrieval System.

Note:

1. The length of the tow rope was subsequently increased to 225 feet.

2. AAF Manual No. 50-17, Pilot Training Manual for the CG-4A Glider, Page 44, notes that the winch drum could accommodate 1,057 feet of 5/8" steel cable.

3. Some say as little as 3 seconds, while others say about 6 seconds. AAF Manual No. 50-17 shows about 6 seconds.

4. Some records say as many as 281.

5. In Colonel Young's book, Into the Valley, published in 1995 by PrintCom, Inc, Dallas, Texas, he states that it took 900 men two months to repair the gliders.

Source Data: The data was extracted from a number of sources:

(1) Gerard M. Devlin's book, Silent Wings, published in 1985 by St. Martin's Press, New York;

(2) Colonel Charles H. Young's book, Into the Valley, published in 1995 by PrintCom, Inc, Dallas, Texas;

(3) James E. Mrazek's book, Fighting Glider of World War II, published in 1977 by St. Martin's Press, New York;

(4) Charles L. Day's book, Silent Ones - WWII Invasion Glider Test and Experiment, published privately in 2001;

(5) AAF Manual 50-17, Pilot Training Manual for the CG-4A Glider, dated March 1945;

(6) AAF Manual 51-129-2, Pilot Training Manual for the C-47 Skytrain Aircraft, dated 15 August 1945;

(7) USAAF Handbook AN-01-25LA-l, Pilot's Flight Operating Instructions for Army Models C-46 Series Airplane, dated 15 December 1944.

Video of CG-4 Waco Glider Pick-Up by B-18 Bolo (Color)

youtube.com/watch?v=S-EFmKr7P0w

A clever way was devised to beef-up the message pick-up system to pick-up a man by a low-flying, fixed-wing aircraft using a hook.

During WW2, OSS agents and downed crews were behind enemy lines and far away from an open grassy field for a STOL aircraft like the Lysander or a C-47 to pick them up. Colonel Thigpen explains:

During the 1920s, a mail pickup system was invented by Lytle S. Adams [direct descendant of Presidents John Adams and his son, John Quincy Adams] and was employed to retrieve outgoing mail in remote areas where overland pickup was impractical. Using Brown's invention, All American Aviation developed a modified pickup system in the 1930s that consisted of two steel poles, set 54 feet apart, with a transfer line swung between them.

A pickup aircraft would approach the cable at 90 miles per hour, with a 50-foot steel pickup cable trailing behind. Just before impact with the transfer cable, the pickup pilot would pull the nose of the aircraft up and engage the transfer cable with a four-pronged grapple anchored to the end of the pickup cable.

A flight mechanic stationed in the fuselage of the aircraft then used a winch to reel the package on board.[25] The system was operational by 1941 at the outbreak of World War II [for use by STOL Grasshopper liaison aircraft].

All-American Aviation and the Air Mail Pick-up System

youtube.com/watch?v=qoNVI6drEMY

youtube.com/watch?v=Ppd-J0y_jI0

From May 1939 through June 1949, All American Aviation employed a unique non-stop airmail pickup and delivery system, invented by Dr. Lytle S. Adams and modified for commercial use by company engineers after Richard C. du Pont acquired Adams's patent rights. Used to deliver airmail to small communities scattered throughout rugged terrain in western Pennsylvania and West Virgina, the system was also exploited in World War II to tow gliders aloft, and to rescue personnel trapped behind enemy lines.

The All-American System: The Forerunner to Fulton STARS

http://youtu.be/-v-XACYdKIE

As the war progressed and the Allies prepared for the eventual invasion of Europe, it became apparent that a capability was needed to extract personnel who had previously parachuted behind enemy lines. Literally thousands of Paratroopers/Special Agents were dropped by Carpetbagger B-24 and B-17 aircraft, along with RAF Halifaxes, in the months before and immediately after the Normandy invasion. The primary option for their recovery was a risky overland trek through enemy-held territory followed by an equally risky linkup with Allied forces in the field. Hoping to find their exfiltration solution in the All American Aviation system, the British began testing the capability early in the war.[26]

In July 1943, the USAAF validated the need for the extraction of downed airmen from behind enemy lines and began an operational test of the All American Aviation system. Initial test produced unsatisfactory results for personnel pickups, with instrumentation recording more than 17 g's (acceleration of gravity) at initial contact with the pickup line. Modifications were made in the parachute harness and the transfer line, thus reducing the initial force on the pick-up package to 7 g's. On 5 September 1943, the first volunteer Paratrooper, Lt Alex Doster, was picked up by a Stinson aircraft utilizing the All American Aviation system.[27]

All-American Man Pick-Up By HU-16 Albatross Amphibian

youtube.com/watch?v=FRu6ZxFAVU8

By Stinson & Norseman Liaison Grasshoppers

youtube.com/watch?v=-v-XACYdKIE

youtube.com/watch?v=p4fvCcqtumo

The first man pick-up was at Wright Field on September 5, 1943. Lt. Alexis Doster, A Paratrooper who volunteered. The Pilot was Norman Rintoul. Rintoul swept down and snagged him in his Stinson at 125MPH. Rintoul is also piloting the aircraft in the HU-16 video clip.

The USAAF continued to improve the capability, and by early 1944 it had developed an airdrop kit containing telescoping poles, a transfer line, and a parachute harness to be worn by the person being extracted. In February 1944 the first operational use of the system came when a C-47 extracted a glider from a remote location in Burma and returned it to a base in India.

For the remainder of the war, the USAAF refrained from using the All American Aviation system for extraction of personnel, but records indicate that the British did use it for that purpose. [28]

After the war further development of the retrieval system was discontinued. Not until the Korean War was interest revived. In the summer of 1951, a B-29 of the 580^th ARCW conducted trials at Eglin AFB, Florida, to determine if a large aircraft could be used for pickups. Although proven technically feasible, safety considerations of flying such a large aircraft close to the ground resulted in the program being dropped for the B-29.[29]

In early 1952, the CIA renewed its interest in the All American Aviation system. The agency was attempting to establish a resistance network in Manchuria with its proprietary airline CAT dropping agents and supplies into Kirin Province by way of C-47 transports. The rugged terrain found in Manchuria favored an extraction system such as the All American Aviation system over airland exfiltration by way of an unprepared runway. By the fall of 1952, CAT C-47 pilots were making static pickups in Japan and successfully retrieved aircraft mechanic Ronald E. Lewis during a training pickup. With the system tested and operationally ready, a CAT C-47 aircraft equipped with the All American Aviation system departed Seoul City Airport (K-16) on the evening of 29 November 1952 for a scheduled pickup of team members previously inserted into Manchuria. Along with two pilots there were two CIA officers on board-John T. Downey and Richard G. Fecteau. A double agent had compromised the team, and Chinese gunners were waiting to ambush the CIA crew. On initial approach in preparation for extraction of the team, the C-47 was shot down, resulting in the death of the two pilots and capture of the two CIA officers by the Chinese. After two decades of imprisonment, the two officers were eventually released from Chinese prison-Fecteau in December 1971 and Downey in March 1973.[30]

The All American Aviation system was adapted by the USAF for C-47 use late in 1952. Building on knowledge gained from the B-29 test the previous year, B Flight, 6167^th Operations Squadron, operating out of K-16 near Seoul, Korea, was assigned the extraction mission by Fifth AF. On two occasions in 1953, B Flight attempted to perform extractions utilizing the system. The first attempt was aborted when the downed airman was captured before the aircraft arrived in the pickup area. The second attempt resulted in heavy damage to the C-47 aircraft during the run-in for pickup. The mission had to be canceled, and the aircraft limped back to its home station without the survivor.[31]

The system proved to be an operational failure for pickup of downed airmen in a hostile [human] environment. All American Aviation did develop a successful engagement system, however, in the late 1960s. The follow-on system enabled C-130-equipped aircraft to snag satellite packages in midair as they parachuted to earth from orbit.

"The Green Berets" Fulton STAR Balloon SkyHook Scene

youtube.com/watch?v=17z9A6Np2nA

Seizing upon this concept and improving it so aircraft wouldn't have to fly so low to the ground, genius inventor Robert Fulton created a kit that could be dropped to the ground containing a helium tank and balloon connecting to a line and 2 jumpsuits that 2 men could wear.

A specially-equipped aircraft with an antenna like device on the nose would fly towards the balloon and snag the line, yanking up the two men below until they trailed the aircraft horizontally and were hooked and reeled in.

We know that Fulton STARS was used in actual combat operations during Desert STORM in 1991 to rescue a seriously wounded SFOD-Delta operator deep behind enemy lines too far for helicopters, saving his life. Another report says a British operative was rescued in Afghanistan in 2001 using Fulton STARS. Folks are still using the system even if the USAF is too cowardly these days.

We also know Fulton STARS was used to do a secret CIA mission "Operation COLD FEET" to the arctic as the pictures below detail.

There were even plans for jet C-141 Starlifters with Fulton STARS. With them retired due to wing cracks, this is no longer an option...or is it?

Turboprop Combat Talons have long-distance ranges that are enabled by in-flight refueling; we should have propfan, MC-130J Combat Talon IIIs with Fulton STARS and air-cushion landing systems (ACLS)--today not crap CV-22s.

CRASH-LANDING: Recovery Pontoons for ditching: Can we afford to throw away $56M each naval fighters into the drink?

VIDEO CLIP: combatreform.org/harriercrashesfromhoverintothewater.mpg

Let's face the truth: one of the reasons navies cannot afford aircraft carriers is because landing and taking off from ships at sea results in them crashing into the water. The Australian Navy had to go out of the aircraft carrier business years ago because they lost too many A-4 SkyHawks. Ejection seats as the video clip above demonstrates can save the aircrew from death, but if you run out of airplanes, where is your naval aviation force?

This is the exact situation that is reaching critical mass in the U.S. Navy that is running out of airplanes to fill its 12 aircraft carriers.

Its time we face the fact that at higher altitudes, when the aircrew eject, the anti-spin landing brake parachute should deploy to reduce the resultant crash severity and perhaps get some parts for salvage. But for low-altitude crashes and ditchings in the water, we need EMERGENCY INFLATABLE AIR BAG FLOATS to deploy if the aircrew ejects when coming in to land on a ship. This will enable the aircraft to crash into the water and float so it can be recovered/repaired or at the very least salvage expensive parts. If they are shaped like skis they also would provide a forward-moving, water ditching capability if the pilot chooses not to or cannot eject. Helicopters that fly over the water have emergency floats and do not incur a significant weight/drag penalty. If helicopters can do this, certainly our $56M+ naval jet fighters, and our land fighters since they fly over oceans to deploy globally. If the aircraft are over enemy held areas and the aircraft floating would result in capture, the pilot could turn the inflatable floats to OFF.

One thing is certain, if we continue with the current rising "Death Spiral" costs of aircraft, U.S. Naval Aviation is going to go out of business just like the Aussies found out years ago.

STEP 3: Get Someone to Land and Rescue You: Want to Live Forever? Satisfied for Just Not Dying Today? Examples of Military Personnel Refusing to Accept Death as Lemming Victims

1968. Vietnam.

A wounded marine is dying and must be evacuated to a hospital or he will die. The weather is closing in so a MEDEVAC helicopter cannot fly to get him. An AH-1G Huey "Cobra" helicopter gunship gets the call over the radio and lands, he is placed inside the seat of the gunner, who climbs onto the stub wings and sits on the rocket pod as the helicopter speeds to the hospital. A life saved by unselfish courage.

1978. Southern Lebanon.

This same thing happens again in Israel, an Israeli Scout 'copter pilot is shot down over Lebanon. The bad guys are closing in on him. An AH-1S Cobra gunship lands and opens its side nose armament access panel, which the downed pilot sits on, and he's flown to safety before killed or captured.

2007. Afghanistan

Below is a link about a recent attempted rescue by UK marines of a colleague by strapping themselves to Apaches - a clear example of the need for a Ground Rescue Insertion Extraction Resupply pod or something similar.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6285091.stm

VIDEO:

bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/player/nol/newsid_6280000/newsid_6284400?redirect=6284429.stm&news=1&bbwm=1&nbram=1&bbram=1&nbwm=1

Footage has been released of a daring rescue mission in which four Royal marines tried to save a comrade in southern Afghanistan.

The men strapped themselves to an Apache helicopter's wings to find Lance Corporal Matthew Ford who went missing in an attack on a Taleban stronghold.

L/Cpl Ford, of 45 Commando Royal Marines, had died but the men retrieved his body during last week's incident.

A UK Task Force spokesman called the mission a "leap into the unknown".

And Geoffrey Perry, the father of Chris Fraser-Perry, one of the marines involved in the rescue, said he was very proud of his son.

'Volunteers' sought

"From what I can gather, obviously they got back to the base and realised that one of the lads was missing and then they were looking for volunteers to go back," he said.

"Obviously everybody volunteered and he for some reason got chosen to go. He was strapped to the side of the helicopter. Obviously had his gun with him, he carries it at all times, and they went back in."

He believed his son was one of two marines who landed and found L/Cpl Ford's body and took it back to the helicopter.

"From what I can gather it was quite a drag; it was about 80 metres or so," he said.

"It was quite an effort for them to actually get there and do what he'd done. I'm just so proud of him really. I just can't believe it."

L/Cpl Ford was part of a 200-strong force who attacked a major Taleban fort to the south of Garmsir in Helmand province. The MoD said the Apache helicopter can only carry a pilot and a gunner but there are attachments on the wings for personnel to harness themselves to in emergencies.

The fort had been a surveillance target for more than two months.

A third Apache helicopter and other units provided covering fire, as the rescue bid got under way, the MoD said.

The helicopters landed in the fort and located L/Cpl Ford's body, which they then strapped to the Apache.

UK Task Force spokesman Lt Col Rory Bruce said: "This is believed to be the first time UK forces have ever tried this type of rescue mission," he said.

"It was an extraordinary tale of heroism and bravery of our Airmen, Soldiers and marines who were all prepared to put themselves back into the line of fire to rescue a fallen comrade. And it was with great sadness they later found their brother-in-arms had been killed in action." L/Cpl Ford, who was the eldest of three brothers, was brought up in Immingham, North East Lincolnshire.

WW2 People Pods: Desperate Times Call on Desperate Measures...

Another application of pods is to enable aircraft without built-in volume to transport ground crews, commandos or rescue people.

1940, France: So which will it be?

Stay here and be captured by the Nazis and be tortured or...

FLY IN THE POD!

The infamous Spitfire fighter "body bag"

1943, Stalingrad: So which will it be?

Stay here and be captured by the Russians and tortured to death...or...

FLY IN THE POD!

JU-87 Pods

During WWII, the Germans were hard-pressed to stay moving to avoid air attacks from Soviet IL-2 Sturmoviks armored attack planes and the Red Army advancing on the ground with T-34 medium tanks.

Greg Goebbel writes:

vectorsite.net/avstuka.html+hs+123+armored&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Manufacturing had moved on to the "Ju-87D-3" in late 1942, with this variant featured improved armor protection to optimize for the schlacht role. It did retain the underwing dive brakes but had no bomb crutch and no sirens. Some Ju-87D-3s were converted to "Ju-87D-4" torpedo bombers, but they were not used operationally and were later converted back to Ju-87D-3 configuration. The Ju-87D-3 was used in experiments with personnel pods, with one such pod carried on the top of each wing outboard of the landing gear. Two people could ride in tandem in each pod, and in principle the pods could be released in a shallow dive, to deploy parachutes for a soft landing. The whole scheme was questionable and though the Stuka was evaluated with the pods, apparently they were never paradropped.

Emmanuel.Gustin adds:

http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:XR1wv0umFksJ:users.skynet.be/Emmanuel.Gustin/history/stuka.html+Ju-87D-3+people+pods&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Stuka units also often had to improvise the transport of their own supplies and ground crews. In Germany, enormous overwing pods were developed for this, which allowed the Ju-87 to carry four people. But they remained experimental, and a common solution was too load everything in a DFS 230 glider and tow it behind a Ju-87. For use during the winter, optional ski landing gear was developed, although it was not widely used because it reduced performance. The removal of wheel spats was also common.

Me-109 Pods

KG200: German Special Operations Unit Parachute Dropped People Pods

As Germany crumbled under the Allied advance, special operations units began to drop agents behind our lines to do sabotage--and escape to start-over with the 4^th Reich.

Axis & Allies Special Operations Aviation

Some of these operatives and war criminals were not up to the job of personally parachute-jumping so they were placed in a 3-man (or woman) pod and DROPPED.

In late 1930's a Russian biplane R-5 was modified to carry sixteen Paratroops in special compartments fitted onto the lower wing of the aircraft. Each compartment housed two combat-ready men with parachutes. R-5 was flown and performed quite well, achieving speeds of 130 km/h. Additional surfaces were fitted under the lower wing (to compensate for loss in wing's performance).

Similar modification with fewer pods were used on a R-5 that participated in rescue of the Cheluskin's crew, a steamer which got trapped in ice and sunk in 1930s. The crew of the ship (100+) got stuck on the ice in the Arctic. The R-5 was used extensively in the rescue mission and removed a major part of the expedition by air.

The British Royal Navy also tinkered with pods on their naval aircraft.

In the Southwest Pacific, our P-38 Lightnings could carry people in underwing pods....

During the Korean War, small Bell 47 and Hiller Raven helicopters were able to carry wounded Soldiers to M.A.S.H. hospital on covered Stokes litters--essentially "people pods"---why not a people pod that attaches to the stub wing hardpoints of an attack aircraft?

Pods on STOVL Aircraft

NEW!!!! James Bond Goes to Iran to Rescue Felix Leiter in "The Bell Tolls for Thee: The Poppy is Also a Flower"

http://youtu.be/jAVV-WUZsPQ

youtube.com/watch?v=4ltaPvRDnno

youtube.com/watch?v=-88ijiDM_Gg

F-35B JSF JPODS and C/SAR-Special Operations

The company formerly known as McDonnell-Douglas (swallowed by Boeing) was working on a Ground Rescue Insertion Extraction Resupply pod (GRIER) for its AV-8B Harrier II V/STOL attack jet that would carry two men inside, taking advantage of that aircraft's ability to land and take-off vertically. This pressurized pod on the outer wings like a fuel tank would allow a 4-man LRS or SF special recon team to insert under the cover as being part of an attack jet "strike package", and/or to dart in and rescue downed pilots faster and with better armament than doing a daylight "O'Grady" which was one missile from another mc Desert One-type flaming disaster.

AV-8B Harrier II with GRIER pod

We need to take the idea a step further and create a helicopter-capable GRIER rocket/rescue pod. This would be an un-pressurized pod that would have 2.75" Hydra-70 rocket tubes inside. Thus, a weapons station is not wasted just holding an empty pod for one-man recovery ("An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure"). If a fellow aircrew member gets shot down (he can eject now) the first comrade on the scene with a GRIER R/R pod ejects the rocket tube inserts and lands. Delay for aircrew recovery helps the enemy not the good guys. The downed aircrew (1-2) can enter one or both of the cleared pods and be flown to safety. The point of this all is that we need a Hydra-70 rocket pod that can eject its tubes and hold a man to rescue him or by design infil/exfil a LRS recon/SF guy. As said before, in the Korean War we transported casualties in pods on Bell Model 47 helicopters--remember from the M*A*S*H TV show? What's the mental block here?

All we are doing is creating a dual-purpose pod that shoots rockets until its needed.

Such rescues have taken place in war--Major Bernard F. Fisher landed his A-1E Skyraider onto an enemy held runway in Vietnam to pick up a downed pilot and earned the Congressional Medal of Honor for it. Click here for a selection of video clips of the awesome Skyraider in action from the official Skyraider home page! German Stuka pilot Hans Rudel did the same kind of rescue in WWII. As wisdom has implied before----"A stitch in time saves nine"--an immediate recovery while the enemy is suppressed is better than waiting for the enemy to use the downed pilot as "bait" and ambush a full-blown rescue effort. The film, "Flight of the Intruder" depicts this common occurrence from the Vietnam War.

According to Tom Clancy in Armored Cav; page 275, that U.S. Army Aviators can hook up their flight vests to the skids of a OH-58D gunship (no extra seats) and be extracted out. Current U.S. Army Aviators wear the SRU-21P SARVIP vest which has a life support capable snap-link point that theoretically could be used to connect a Soldier to a helicopter for emergency pick-up. This is just like the British Soldiers who recently rode AH-64 attack helicopter stub wings to rescue a comrade in Afghanistan. Every Soldier should wear a life-support-capable "Rigger's belt" anyway. The question is: are there any points on the AH-64 Apache or the new RAH-66 for a snaplink to fit through and hold an aviator for a rescue? If not, or if the Soldier is injured, we need a GRIER rocket-rescue pod, put SARVIP vest connection lugs on the outside of the pod so the able bodied can be carried out using their vests. This way each pod could carry an injured Soldier and up to 2 others.

It seems entirely reasonable and desirable that at least one U.S. Army helicopter in every attack flight be equipped with a GRIER R/R pod. The gunner on that helicopter should have a pair of SKEDCO rolled up extraction litters and a M3 aid bag with IVs etc. in the space under the rocket tubes/pod, and have Combat LifeSaver (CLS) training. Upon landing, he could stabilize the wounded aircrew if needed, and if necessary drag them back to the helo pod using the SKEDCO. This is "down and dirty" and he has to be a real "stud", but there is also no reason why a SF 18D medic couldn't be onboard an armed Blackhawk AH-60L Direct Action Penetrator if it were a 160^th SOAR mission or USAF Pararescueman (PJ) in a MH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter in a joint mission to give a hand rescuing wounded aircrews. For most cases, the GRIER R/R pod "snatch" would be for an able-bodied aircrew calling in for a quick pick-up.

MH-60 Direct Action Penetrator with 30mm autocannon and 7.62mm MiniGun pointing forward

Another purpose for GRIER pods would be the delivery of small "All-Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) under the ESSS wings of the UH-60 Blackhawk so they do not have to be "sling-loaded". A sling-load has to be flown gingerly to prevent oscillating. ATVs carried snug up against ESSS wings in roll-on/off pods would be more streamlined and allow the pilots to fly aggressive nap-of-the-earth (NOE) flight profiles over enemy held territory. This would create an AIRmotorized "Dragoon" capability for U.S. Army Strike forces to move short distances on the ground to recover personnel and enable landing zones (LZs) off-set from the objective to keep the enemy from detecting them. An even better light mechanized commando (MECHANDO) option would be M113 MiniGavin light tanks with armored mobility and heavy firepower paradropped or airlanded.

I'm not sure where our GRIER AV-8B with 2-man pods R&D stands with Boeing gobbling up McD-D...the Brits are pursuing a 1-man pods concept...with parachute delivery, too. On a Harrier the noise intensity would have been a challenge. The Pegasus engine gives of 165-170dB close up. Above 140dB nausea can be overwhelming. Above 160dB human hair can combust! So pod sound insulation is a must!

flightglobal.com/articles/1998/09/23/43106/uk-test-fits-avpro-exint-pod-on-harrier.html

UK test fits Avpro Exint pod on Harrier

The UK Defence Evaluation and Research Agency has test fitted the Avpro Exint pod on a British Aerospace Sea Harrier F/A2 at the company's Boscombe Down facility. The system, designed for combat search and rescue and special forces insertion, will be flown later this year following interest from the UK Ministry of Defence.

flightglobal.com/articles/2000/01/25/61133/exint-cleared-for-ah-64-as-production-starts.html

Exint cleared for AH-64 as production starts

UK advanced design firm Avpro has cleared its Exint transport pod for use with the Boeing AH-64 Apache. Certification to carry personnel is required. The pylon-mounted Exint is designed for combat search and rescue and special forces insertion.

Avpro director Mike Ryan says that 17 countries have expressed an interest in Exint - which has also been fit-checked on the British Aerospace Harrier - and that one is close to placing an order. The U.S. marine corps and special forces are interested parties, says Ryan.

In the special forces insertion role, an AH-64 can carry four pods, which in turn can carry 226kg (500lb) each.

Hunting will build the predominately composite structure and is embarking on a 50-unit initial production batch. The first pod is due for completion in April. Ryan predicts that the market could be worth £800 million ($1.3 billion).

Avpro is to issue shares in the Exint to fund remaining certification work. Ryan says the Exint is compatible with other attack helicopters such as Bell AH-1Cobras, Denel Rooivalks and Eurocopter Tigers.

Ryan declines to name the first customer, but it is believed to be Israel, which has a long history of using its attack helicopters to rescue downed pilots, usually lifting them out on the skids of its AH-1s. It requires a similar capability for its Apaches.

www.avpro.co.uk/Exint.html

Emotive pictures of captured aircrew during the Gulf War have generated a political as well as a military need to rescue downed aircrew.

Avpro, in conjunction with Hunting Engineering and the Defence Evaluation Research Agency (DERA), completed a feasibility study into a pod known as EXINT (extraction/insertion), which can recover aircrew in a rapid manner.

EXINT is a pod primarily designed to provide recovery of downed aircrew, but could also be used for other missions such as the insertion of special forces in out-of-area operations.

EXINT exploits the unique vertical take-off and landing capability of the Harrier, but will also be suitable for use on other aircraft and helicopters such as the UK WAH-64D Apache Longbow attack Helicopter, without any structural modifications to them. The feasibility addressed not only the pod design but also the Aero Medical operational and environmental aspects of recovery/insertion missions.

AVPRO Limited
PO BOX 9128 ACTON London W3 6GE UK
TEL 44 (0) 207 495 6565
FAX 44 (0) 207 394 5349

Email: mikeryan@avpro.co.uk

Farnborough Office

Avpro Limited
Farnborough Innovation Centre
Northgate Road
Farnborough, Hampshire, GU14 6TW

Tel: +44 (0)1252 550040
Fax: +44 (0)1252 550101

U.S. Office

AVPRO Aerospace Inc.
PO Box 15680
Long Beach
CA 90815 USA

Tel: +1 (562) 420-7488
Fax: +1 (562) 420-7644

Email: avproaerospace@mindspring.com

EXINT Pod Equipment

Parachute retarder system
Air Bag landing system
Global Positioning System
Radio
Air conditioning
NBC filtration system
Multi function display panel

EXINT is a one-man pod of some 4 metres in length and is fitted with internal equipment such as radio and air conditioning systems. An equipment bay also allows small arms and other personal equipment to be carried. A state-of-the art parachute and airbag system, developed from the Mars Lander Space Craft programme will allow the pod to make a soft landing should it be released from the aircraft in an emergency situation.

In today's uncertain world, there are few items of cost-effective equipment that can offer the world's armed forces, the multi-role versatility, and flexibility of EXINT.

http://ebird.dtic.mil/Oct1998/s19981028pods.htm

London Sunday Times
October 25, 1998

Attack Pods Drop In On The Enemy: High-tech capsules could parachute Soldiers into action on clandestine missions or be used to rescue downed pilots.

Report by Mark Prigg

Parachute pods that turn into stealth boats could soon be used to deliver troops to attack enemy warships.

Each pod contains one Soldier, his equipment and breathing system. The pods can be attached to the side of Harrier jump jets, Apache attack helicopters or other military craft.

Once released at a high altitude to avoid the aircraft being spotted, the Soldier in the pod will release a steerable parachute and float down.

Mike Ryan, a director of Avpro, the company developing the pods, says: "Because the pod has its own oxyen, we can drop it from altitudes of more than 20,000 ft. Opening the parachute at this height means descent can take up to five hours, giving the Soldiers time to survey the area."

The pods have a GPS system that allows them to be guided with great precision. All the Soldier has to do is put the map co-ordinates of his destination into the pod's computer and it will do the rest. The system is accurate to within a metre, and the Soldier can take control at any time to change course.

Once the pod nears water, a proximity sensor inflates six airbags, which help the pod land safely and quietly on the water where the airbags form a protective skirt, giving, the pod extra stability. It can than be moved up to 50 miles by a propeller driven by a tiny electric motor.

Ryan says: "The pod isn't very fast, but it is completely silent. If this is used at night, there is no way anyone will see or hear you."

Windows on either side of the unit allow the Soldier to see out, and the pod's computer allows the Soldier to stay in radio contact with his superiors. The screen in front of the Soldier can also be linked to an aircraft's navigation system, so the Soldier can see exactly where he is while still attached to the plane.

"There is a small camera that helps alleviate claustrophobia by showing images from outside. There are also a number of other cameras and sensors that can be attached on the outside of the pod for surveillance operations," says Ryan. He is also working on another version of the pod for picking up downed airmen. Attached to a Harrier jump jet, the pod would allow the craft to land quickly, the airman to climb into the pod, and the craft to take off almost instantly.

"We saw in the Gulf war how difficult it was to locate and rescue downed airmen, so we came up with the pod idea. After all, the last turns, you expect in a war zone is a supersonic plane to come in, stop dead and hover before touching down to pick someone up."

Ryan's work has been sponsored by the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA), which has helped to prove the concept.

"Thanks to DERA we have been able to prove that the system will work. We now have a prototype pod attached to a Harrier which we will use for flight tests later this year," he says. "The airbag and parachute system has already been extensively tested. It is the same design used on the Mars Pathfinder mission, so we know it holds up to extreme conditions well."

Dera has also carried out tests to make Sure humans can survive journeys in the pods.

"We were worried about the safety aspect - being in one of these pods is quite a ride. We've actually been approached by an amusement company to sell rides in these things when they are strapped to a jet fighter. However, I don't think we will be working with them just yet - I certainly won't be volunteering to be their first passenger," says Ryan.

Once in production, each pod should cost about 100,000. Ryan believes that for special-forces operations this is cheap.

"This isn't something that will be used every day, and when you consider that the cost of training a fighter pilot is about 3.7m, then paying, 100,000 for something to get him back intact isn't such a bad deal."

According to Ryan, the problem now is finding funding to complete development of the pod.

"If we had an unlimited supply of money, we could have this thing in operation within six months. However, that is unrealistic and because of the way the funding process works in Britain, we think it will take about two years before we go into production. There has been a lot of interest from abroad, particularly from Japan and America, so we may be able to get extra funding there."

The Japanese authorities have expressed an interest in adopting the system for both military and civilian uses.

"At things like a road-traffic accident the pods are very useful. Not only can we ferry the injured out, we can also take in supplies and doctors. We are even looking at the possibility of having a special pod that contains an entire operating theatre that could fold out," says Ryan.

10/28/98 7:39 AM

USSOCOM CSAR AIRCRAFT ON NAVY AMPHIB SHIPS?

MH-60s on an USN Amphib at Sea Today: Where were they in 1995?

Shot out of his F-16 by a Serbian missile, USAF Captain Scott O'Grady is blown by the winds for 25 minutes under his parachute and begins praying. Upon landing and evading searchers who walked by sometimes as close as 5 feet from him--his final prayer was "to be rescued and not have anyone die doing it".

6 days later at midnight, his squadron mate, F-16 "Basher 11" (Captain T.O. Handlen) locates him on the radio and orders a rescue. He flies to a tanker to mid-air refuel. An AC-130 Spectre gunship for fire support and pinpointing O'Grady's location with forward looking infared (FLIR) is with him by the tanker for the armored, heavily armed, night/adverse weather sensor-equipped AFSOC MH-53J Pave Low III helicopter(s) on alert in Brindisi, Italy to fly in under the cover of darkness to extract O'Grady to safety. O'Grady has Global Positioning System (GPS) to radio his exact location to his inbound rescuers.

But the night rescue never came. O'Grady is told to wait.

Instead, the Navy Admiral in charge, Leighton Smith decides to wait until daylight and have his naval services do the mission in large visible formations: like he flew in Vietnam and watched dozens of men get shot down in the process. Denying parochialism as a motive or being ignorant of the way downed pilots are recovered in the 90s, the fact that he sent the USS Kearsarge into the Adriatic with a daylight only capable TRAP unit created ad hoc from a mortar platoon without placing an armored, AFSOC sensor equipped helicopter onboard with crews and pararescumen trained for a tactically sound night rescue exposes the lie. Instead, that morning a fleet of aircraft and men were put into harm's way in broad daylight to escort 2 huge CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters with higher ranking marines wanting to present themselves as "leading from the front" instead of shooters. Half of this entourage upon landing couldn't even get out of their helicopter when its rear ramp jammed on a farm fence landing on a non-Pathfinder surveyed LZ. What good would two helicopters packed with people be if O'Grady had been in thick undergrowth and there was NOWHERE to land? Just inviting targets as they hover to lower a rescue hoist? As these loud, vulnerable machines kicked up dust in an open danger area, O'Grady ran up to one and rescued himself as the relatively few lower ranking shooters struggled to fan out and prevent a burst of Serbian small arms or RPG fire from turning the cow pasture into another mc created "Desert One". Fortunately, O'Grady's prayers were answered as the unarmored aircraft flew out and though hit by small arms fire, were not hit by the two surface to air missiles fired that could have sent a helicopter packed with 20+ men to their deaths. Mission Commander LTC Chris Gunther :

"We all thought there were probably two or three miracles connected with the rescue of Scott O'Grady...despite the navigation system on the lead helicopter breaking down, the AWACs (USAF radar plane) was there to give us the guidance and maintain very good situational awareness throughout"

Today we debate the morality of sending 8 men in to rescue a Private Ryan on film while in REALITY we have so-called professionals willing to send in 61 to get one on a poorly conceived operation that was just one missile away from disaster, so they can showboat themselves and their service. This is all documented in detail in Mary Pat Ryan's book Good to Go which like the Serbian ambush that got O'Grady, cleverly gets the players to talk. While they boast about their decisions and "institutional values" and other chest-thumping she paints the picture a tactician or person with common sense would see as a daytime disaster asking to happen and a military where people at too high of a Command level are making decisions best made by those on the scene. She lists BY NAME AND RANK everyone involved in the O'Grady caper and its implications are sickening. Out of the 61 men needlessly risked to rescue one, 20 were officers or Staff NCOs--some packed onboard the helicopters with no business being there, some flying helicopter gunships slower than the Sea Stallions and creating more low-flying targets for the Serbs. We had the MEU commander a full Colonel and his Sgt. Major on board. Then the Lieutenant Colonel mission commander, another SNCO, all to "supervise" a TRAP team led by a 1LT. What should have been one aircraft radioing to another on alert while maintaining contact overhead to effect a simple and tactically prudent rescue at night became a jointitis "purple people goatscrew" where decisions were framed by "lowest common denominator" group think advice fed to a figurehead commander, far removed from current battlefield realities. If Admiral Smith was so eager to rescue O'Grady immediately he would have sent in the AFSOC helicopter(s) immediately to get him out under darkness and not waited. If he wanted to wait and get a more deliberate attempt he could have waited until nightfall the next day and prevented losing more men by exposing on those absolutely necessary for the rescue.

USN Lt. Commander Bob Nugent on suppressing Serbian air defenses:

"..what if they had actually gotten a missile off and a helicopter had gone down"? It would have been very hard to explain to the parents of all these people on that helicopter that we had had even ambiguous indications that there was a threat there and didn't act on it"

It would also be hard to justify a daylight mission instead of ordering night rescue.

Major Michael Ogden one of the CH-53E pilots said about using the AFSOC rescue team:

"This was going to be a daylight mission...I'm not inside the loop, so I don't know why the decision was made to send us in instead of somebody else"

Instead of an ill-equipped force is sent on a wrong mission we should have a sensor and armor equipped CSAR helo on every amphibious group to do recoveries without 60+ men.

FIXED WING AIR-CUSHION AIRCRAFT: LONG RANGE RESCUE?

Basically the V-22 is an expensive helicopter that flies a little bit faster. The world is still 24,000 miles around, 100-200 mph just isn't going to cut it. We need to solve the basic problem of fixed-wing aircraft--which is we have them land on wheels and roll to a stop. As General Gavin said in 1947 we need a lower-pressure under carriage than that, perhaps tracks as he suggested or an AIR CUSHION. We already have made this work, and again--the Russians have a seaplane in production with it. A C-130 with an Air-Cushion Landing System (ACLS) could land almost anywhere sea or land to pick up downed aircrew and rescue all kinds of endangered people in peacetime from long search ranges. Remember you have to find them first. Instead of losing contact as you wait for a helo to refind them, land yourself and rescue them when you find them.

The world we live in moves by the speed of the AIR, our nation is a strategic AIR POWER. Some of our aircraft as hard as we try to prevent otherwise, are going to go down. Lets insure our people are not inside them when it happens.

STEP 4: If No One Will Rescue, You--Fly Yourself Back to Base!

We have had the technology for a very long time to drop a kit to downed airmen and in it, provide them with an inflatable airplane to fly themselves back to base. You could say that VTOL aircraft if they can drop a pod to you, they should be able to land themselves to pick you up as we proposed earlier as "STEP 3". Sadly, this is not always possible due to the Earth environment and enemy situation. Sometimes the best we can do is drop a pod with an airplane inside it--and we should be ready to do this. The video below details how the inflato-plane could also be used as an insertion-extraction means OF CHOICE for Commandos, too.

youtube.com/playlist?p=PL652C40D87B73C4D3

U.S. NAVY/marines LIVING IN DENIAL AND ON BORROWED TIME

After World War 1, "the war to end all wars" many falsely concluded there'd be no more nation-state wars as their militaries downsized and focused on small sub-national conflicts for resources and/or political control. In the 1920s/30s the British/French reorganized themselves to fight colonial wars and were nearly destroyed completely by the Germans/Japanese at the outbreak of nation-state WW2. America is making this same mistake today, particularly with its Navy and defective wannabe land army, the marine corps and when nation-state war breaks out thousands of men are going to suffer and die horribly due to their own stupidity to get on the sub-national conflict "GWOT" land attack band wagon to fund their irrelevant cash cows.

First, if the Navy/Mc wanted to contribute to sub-national conflict capabilities they'd create kits to rapidly convert container ships into small aircraft/commando carriers so we could "sea base" off shore near third world countries and deploy relevant Army SOF/Airborne/Light infantry/Mechanized forces and Navy SEALs to kill/capture actual terrorists and support with training friendly nation-states without a large on-shore presence which can be mishandled to become an oppressive occupation as seen in Iraq. For deep inland areas, the "Container Assault Ships" can assist in projecting resupply logistics with minimal of road/trail supply lines using aircraft and cross-country capable tracked M113 AmphiGavins. Details:

nlmb.htm

Such a merchant ship escort carrier (CVE) capability had to be forced upon the pomp and circumstance Navy by wise President Roosevelt before we entered WW2. FDR had to order the Navy to escort civilian cargo ship convoys with CVEs since the wanna-duel-the-other-Navy egomaniacs with no concept of strategic or operational art were not interested in this "chore". These jeep carriers won the war against the German u-boats in the Atlantic and helped our submarines keep supplies away from the Japanese MacArthur's army bypassed to bleed and starve them into defeat. Container ship aircraft carriers could today generate enough aircraft to smother enemy air attacks and keep submarines away for us to frankly survive on the surface of the water. If we had 100 small container ship aircraft carriers we might be able to keep oil tankers and container cargo ships intact to keep our economy going in the face of attackers who could indeed be a sub-national "terrst" who strapped an anti-ship missile to a business jet. Details:

midwaymyth.htm

However, the Navy/Mc want none of this, they are insufferable greedy egomaniacs who only want purpose-built "capital" ships which even a rich nation like the U.S. can only afford handfuls. They don't want non-sexy seaplanes, LTA blimps, patrol planes to hunt subs or rescue men in peril in the sea. If they fly, they want to be Tom Cruise in an overweight, under-powered F-18. They want a comfortable large capital ship that operates like an office building afloat that checks into foreign ports so the men can chase wine women and song. The narcissistic attitudes of the "lifers" has not changed since when FDR had to over-rule them to get them to do their jobs. Planet earth is still the same large place it was in WW2 which required over 100 mostly small aircraft carriers to control the seas with and to think we can get the job done with less than a dozen "supercarriers" and a sub-300 unarmored ship navy packed with sailors and marines refusing to face the fact they will be easily sunk by anti-ship missiles, torpedoes, sea mines from plentiful enemy aircraft and quiet diesel-electric submarines and WILL BE IN THE WATER FIGHTING FOR THEIR LIVES WITH NO ONE TO RESCUE THEM. In a way its too bad that a mere dozen more Argentine iron bombs were not fuzed properly in the 1982 Falklands war; had they gone off, the British invasion would have failed and the half-assed WW2 re-enactment status quo would have been rebuked so we would not be in the mess we are today thinking that we don't need heavily armored ships but can somehow swat down enemy anti-ship missiles by mere countermeasures and anti-missile missiles while crouched in flimsy thin-skinned surface ships packed with thousands of sailors and marines. The entire Navy/Mc is set to find itself by the thousands floating in the water in a 100 times worse replay of the USS Indianapolis sinking in 1945; dying of exposure, thirst and sharks but this time with no one to rescue them.

abandonshippreparetodie.htm

How bad was WW2 when at least the Navy/Mc was trying to do the right things? A lot worse than you may have thought.

U.S. Naval Aviation News of March 1, 1946 reports:

www.history.navy.mil/nan/backissues/1940s/1946/1mar46.pdf

We don't know how many men were rescued from ship sinkings. However, we can subtract the overall WW2 Navy deaths from the aircraft deaths we do know of and get a rough idea of how many died needlessly in the water.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

62, 614 Navy dead minus 11, 142 aircraft dead = 51, 472 potentially dead in ship sinkings---nearly the total number of men we lost in Vietnam!

faqfarm.com/Q/How_many_US_soldiers_died_in_World_War_2

NAVY KILLED IN ACTION 34,702; DIED OF WOUNDS 1,783
OTHER DEATHS 26,793
TOTAL NAVY DEATHS 63,278

36, 485 Navy dead from combat minus 11, 142 aircraft dead = 25, 343 potentially dead in ship sinkings

WOUNDED 33,670 MISSING 28
TOTAL NAVY CASUALTIES 96,976.

MARINES; KILLED IN ACTION 15,460 DIED OF WOUNDS 3,163
OTHER DEATHS 5,863
TOTAL MARINE DEATHS 24,486
WOUNDED 67,134
TOTAL MARINE CAUALTIES 91,620.

We cannot differentiate marine dead at sea or on land if we subtracted their aircraft dead. However, one LIE is revealed---this USMC BS that they did all or even most of the dying and somehow deserve worship and adulation is a pile of crap; the U.S. Army did most of the fighting and dying in WW2 against the very dangerous German military, and even in the side-show Pacific THE U.S. NAVY's SAILORS DID MORE OF THE DYING BY A FACTOR GREATER THAN 2-to-1. Only 18, 623 marines died in "glorious" combat in WW2.

PLANE LOSSES

Non-Combat (TBATE)

Navy: 2, 784 + 642 + 203 + 1, 237 + 3, 093 + 108 = 8, 067 DEAD
Mc: 542 + 892 = 1, 434 DEAD
________________________________
SUB-TOTAL: 9, 501 DEAD

Combat (TBAM)

Navy: 3, 075
Mc: 446
________________________________

SUB-TOTAL: 3, 521 DEAD

_____________________________________
TOTAL: 13, 022 DEAD BY AIRCRAFT

Read the U.S. Naval Aviation News magazines from 1942-1946:

www.history.navy.mil/nan/backissues/1940s/1940smain/1940smain.htm

NARCISSISM is the #1 PROBLEM IN THE U.S. MILITARY.

What WW2 Should Have Taught Us...

Past issues of U.S. Naval Aviation News reveals the forced adaptation to harsh circumstances in WW2 followed by the decay of the Navy and marines that started immediately at war's end. The FACTS are that in war whether you are on a ship or in an aircraft, the chances are very high that you will end up IN THE WATER. Facing this reality, the Navy by war's end realized that they actually had to have all aviators get into an aircraft fuselage on a crane and dunk them into the water and forced them to actually practice water crash landings ("ditching") and escape the aircraft and get into floatation life vests and rafts. During actual operations in combat, they had lifeguard small boats, submarines, small seaplanes from battleships/cruisers, large seaplanes and long-ranged land planes on "Dumbo" patrol ready to drop rafts/supplies and land on the open ocean (what saved the 300 survivors of the USS Indianapolis out of the 900 thrown into the water after 3 days of neglect), and even LTA blimps ready to hover over and reel-in men in the water. 2, 150 men's lives were saved. Go ask them if they are still around 6 decades later and their off-spring if this rescue effort was worth it or not. You could start with George H.W. Bush Senior who was saved by a submarine when his TBM Avenger plane was shot down in WW2...then ask why his son as incompetent RMA-driven president does not provide adequate rescue means for today's servicemen?

Ditching was preferred over parachute bail-out in WW2 because you could have more survival supplies if you can access your larger sea raft in your aircraft than what was carried on your person leaving the plane. Survival in the water gear was perfected and improved on. The caveat here was this was all being done to recover the costly to train egomaniac aircrew member; the sailor on a surface ship didn't get shit for survival gear and this neglect continues to the present day; if the survivors of the Indianapolis had had a fraction of the gear the naval aviators had, say solar stills, a lot of 900 wouldn't have died of thirst during the 3 days the "Big Navy" forgot they existed. The survive-in-the-water ethos of the naval aviators of WW2 needs to be brought into the surface sailor mentality who should be a WARRIOR in the first place. However, this all came to a screeching halt at the end of WW2.

Solar Still to get fresh drinking water from 1946: what's our excuse for not having these today?

As the memories of WW2 faded and common sense men left the service, the narcissistic egomaniac pompous asses took over and began to squeeze out common sense reality from the force structure to create more money for their large supercarrier ego cash cows. First to go were the small aircraft carriers. Then the small seaplanes under the bogus excuse that the short range and slow helicopter would keep everyone dry and somehow keep subs away when they can't even fly far enough to create an outer defensive ring. Next, the large seaplanes and LTA blimps were retired with another lame excuse that carrier-based and land based ASW planes would do rescues and hunt subs when they can't even land on the water. Heavily armored battleships and cruisers take money from the supercarriers, so they were substituted for flimsy, thin-skinned destroyers/cruisers packed full of sexy electronics and missiles, all ready to explode if hit. That the USN even has submarines is a minor miracle of Admiral Rickover and a WW2 veteran Congress, both of which are gone today. While not happy to have subs forced upon them, the large aircraft carrier "mafia" will damn well not waste money on things that admit that they are vulnerable to enemy subs so the carrier-based S-3 Viking ASW planes that could create an outer defensive circle are retired and the land-based P-3 Orion ASW patrol planes allowed to wear out to the current less than 100 to create more money for ego gratifying F-18s to drop expensive guided bombs for mega expensive land attack competition to the USAF doing sub-national GWOT wars. That "no one is minding the store" at sea begs the enemy to sink us en masse.

Navy/Mc Aviation not ready to go into the water...or land

As WW2's thousands-of-men-in-the-water institutional memory faded, two tracks of aviation continued; slow airplanes and fast ones. The slow airplanes that can do ASW-AEW, COD and CSAR have as we see been slowly squeezed out of existence placing the entire survival of the surface navy in dire jeopardy. When these planes are hit by enemy fire there are two choice; you can bail-out with a parachute or crash-land. With everyone living in denial, its a question if Navy lower-life form personnel even have parachutes on the P-3s and E/C-2s or other transport planes. They all think they are in an airliner trip that will start from a smooth runway and end with a smooth runway. In 2001, this BS smashed into the crew of a Navy EP-3 Aries II (Orion) when an overly aggressive communist Chinese fighter collided with them. The pilot should have ordered everyone to bail-out if they had parachutes and been trained/prepared to survive in the water. If not, he should have prepared them to ditch into the water and get into life rafts. Again, its doubtful they had any realistic dunker training to get into the water, though lots of hardy WW2 generation sailors learned on-the-job. So instead, the pilot in command chooses to fly his damaged plane TO THE NEARBY COMMUNIST AIR BASE TO CRASH LAND THERE AND GIVE AWAY ALL OUR ELECTRONIC WARFARE SECRETS HELD ON THE PLANE TO THEM. So much for patriotism.

The point here is that the United States suffered grave compromise to its national security in the field of electronic warfare all because the screwed-up-refuse-to-face-the-reality-that-it-operates on-the-water Navy did not have an aircrew ready to either bail-out or ditch so their plane could sink to the bottom of the ocean and not fall into enemy hands. Again, the slow unsexy but necessary planes of our Navy are marginally tolerated and certainly neglected. The fact is that ALL U.S. MILITARY PERSONNEL SHOULD BE PARACHUTE JUMP QUALIFIED. EVERY PERSON WHO RIDES IN A MILITARY AIRCRAFT SHOULD HAVE AT THE VERY LEAST A BAIL-OUT PARACHUTE. Those aircrews in planes without ejection seats had damn well better start taking water crash landings seriously to include actual dunker training so they can get themselves out of the plane in a hurry and get into life rafts. Survival training to employ at sea water creating and signal devices is a must. This is the bare minimum and we are failing to do this.

One of the reasons water ditching is not on the "radar screen" of institutional Navy/Mc consciousness these days is because the sexy fighter planes they prefer have ejection seats. When you eject, you automatically get whether you like it or not a seat pack that has a small one-man life boat. So over the years, pilot ejects, he gets into his tiny boat, starts his locator beacon and awaits for rescue. If he's found, all's well, if not he was just another dead egomaniac, who cares? He signed up to be sexy and now he's dead. Live in fame, down in flames yadda yadda. However, if the pilot doesn't die after ejection but gets captured by the enemy he may end up getting tortured for years in a "Hanoi Hilton". What is the navy's response then? Rather than admit that the best way to affordably project high explosives en masse is by the sea based artillery of Iowa class battleship guns, they want to take humans out of the airplanes so they don't have to hassle with any of this we-got-to-rescue-him costs/complications: enter the UAV model airplane BS. And this BS is far from new. AS SOON AS WW2 ENDED THE NAVY BRASS WERE ALREADY GA-GA OVER PILOTLESS REMOTE CONTROLLED PLANES. We flew 24 F-6F Hellcats by remote control into the nuclear bomb mushroom cloud at Bikini atoll in 1946. The question that arises is, if we were able to guide planes and bombs and missiles by WW2's end, WHY WERE WE DROPPING IRON BOMBS OVER NORTH VIETNAM TO TRY TO DROP BRIDGE SPANS USING HUMAN BEINGS IN FIGHTER-BOMBER AIRCRAFT, suffering thousands of casualties?

The UAV and the cruise missile are costly attempts to FLY WITH WINGS THE ORDNANCE TO THE TARGET. The USAF already has this disease in spades as its reverting back to a blue uniform expensive version of Army field artillery. As the Navy continues to neglect is core responsibilities of controlling the sea, its following the Air Force to be an ultra expensive sea-based version of field artillery to do LA.

When UAV firepower doesn't work? Send in the clowns

Another thing a fresh look at WW2 would reveal is that we DID NOT CATCH JAPANSE KAMIKAZE AIRCRAFT ON THE GROUND TO PREVENT THEM FROM DIVING INTO OUR SURFACE SHIPS. If you look carefully at the back issues of Naval Aviation News you will see pictures and reports of the Japanese extensively using dummy planes to absorb our aircraft firepower. The Navy brass pompously boast that carrier planes hit many kamikaze planes in pre-emptive strikes, yet the FACTS are that THOUSANDS OF KAMIKAZES TOOK OFF FROM OUT OF NOWHERE AND TRIED TO DIVE INTO OUR SHIPS AND MANY WERE NOT STOPPED BEFORE SUCCEEDING TO KILL THEMSELVES AND LOTS OF AMERICANS. Its inescapable to have to conclude that the planes you see in obvious horseshoe revetments in Navy pictures at the time MUST HAVE BEEN DECOYS INTENDED TO BE SEEN BY US. The Japanese certainly must have taken off in a small plane and looked down at themselves to see how their deception and camouflage was working or not working.

So if MANNED aircraft can be fooled by enemy C3D2, then certainly the UAV with a soda straw view and TV imagery is going to be fooled, and we will end up expending $BILLIONS of dollars of expensive ordnance blowing up NOTHING. When this happens, the inevitable result when the "transformational RMA" bullshit fails is to SEND IN HUMAN BEINGS IN THE AIR AND ON THE GROUND TO FIND OUT WHERE THE ENEMY REALLY IS. Exactly what recently befell the IDF in southern Lebanon after they listened to our RMA lunatics. And when these folks are sent in they will be ill-prepared because for the years preceding the conflict they bought into the RMA push-button firepower war bullshit and neglected TRACKED ARMORED GROUND MANEUVER and manned observation/attack aircraft that can work together to separate the actual enemy "wheat" from the decoy "chaff". They will die by the thousands fighting the enemy "even" on foot or get constantly blown up in flimsy rubber-tired trucks that can't leave roads/trails where enemy land mines await them. Turn your TV on and watch video from Iraq. Our aircrews will get shot down and become bloated bodies on the water or be captured/tortured and used on TV as hostages.

What should we do?

We need to wake up (replace greed and ego with humility and practicality) and restore a sea control Navy that can smother enemy air and sea attacks in the first place with container ship carriers. We need to bring back heavily armored battleships/cruisers, small and large seaplanes and LTA blimps for ASW/CSAR/COD/SOF, and improve ejection seats so they can glide a short distance for safe recovery by a rescue plane in flight or on the ground/sea. EVERYONE in the Navy/Mc needs to be trained and equipped as individuals to bail-out parachute jump or ejection seat parachute jump or be thrown without warning into the ocean after a ship explosion/sinking and survive. The USAF's choice of the CH-47 helicopter as its new CSAR platform is very wise since it can land on water and roll-off M113 Mini-Gavin armored tracks to go pick-up downed aircrews as the Chinook sits in a semi-secure location. At least someone is on the ball in our physically emasculated DoD.

We need to stop packing dumb marines by the thousands in vulnerable surface ships just to deploy them ashore on foot and in wheeled trucks just so they can get themselves killed to self-validate at tax payer's expense. What amphib ships we have to be sent out only if grouped with adequate container ship carrier air cover to keep them from being sunk. The future must be in submarine amphibious assault carriers and large WIG seaplanes; if the narcissistic marines want to keep replaying WW2 frontal beach assault blood baths, then its time to disband them and give the job of projecting land maneuver forces from the sea to the U.S. Army who has always done a better job of it anyway (North Africa, Normandy, Sicily, South France, New Guinea, Philippines, Inchon).

We must also face the fact that aircraft WILL CRASH and stop accepting these human and materiel losses because this feeds the greed of the MICC-TT. We don't make thousands of airplanes anymore like we did in WW2, so we damn well better do EVERYTHING we can to save them. We need SIMPLE, AFFORDABLE observation/attack "Killer Bees" that we can have in the THOUSANDS that are CRASH-WORTHY and have redundant recovery systems so at the very least we get an aircraft back for cannibalization for parts. What this could be from a "clean sheet" design is covered on the web page below:

www.combatreform.org/killerbees2.htm

We need to stop living in denial and face the fact that we as humans have to be involved IN THE MEDIUM WE ARE FIGHTING IN a.k.a MANEUVER and stop these false notions of absentee firepower warfare.

Army Aviator replies:

"During the Vietnam conflict the Army experimented with ejection systems for the Cobra helicopter. Blow the rotor system followed by ejection for the pilots. It never got far as the time for the sequence took to long for the flight profile of a Cobra without rotors. Aviators also were more comfortable with attempting autorotation. This was before the days of SAMs. SAMs drove helicopters to low level as we entered the days of massed formations with ZSU 23-4 and SA-8 and MANPADS. So in this environment bailing out would be non-productive. Also there was the possibility of jumping out into the tail rotor, that would ruin your day as well. The American (and European) method was to build aircraft with shock absorbing seats, impact absorbing fuselage sections, and long stroke landing gear. These have proved viable as long as the aircraft impacted at lower speeds and with the dirty side down. Indeed this is what kept some of the aviators alive in the Blackhawks that got shot down in Somalia. The Army is introducing airbags into helicopters now to further improve the survivability factor for the crews. Escape from transport helicopters was never considered as it was felt that it would not be good for moral to have the aviators leave the damaged aircraft with the troopers in the back. Better they should share the troopers fate and maybe get the aircraft on the ground safely, versus punching out at the first sign of fire, etc. Interestingly for this very reason the marine corps elected not to put ejection/bail out capability in the V-22.

With the change of flight profiles (higher again) there has yet to be an issue of attempting bail out. Still not flying high enough to get out and open before the sudden stop at the bottom. Ejection requires you blow the rotors and there is no guarantee they will all come off. Of interest the Russians have designed the KA-50 Werewolf (NATO: Hokum) with an ejection system. Part of the reason that the Russians have opted to go this route is that they have a different flight profile/philosophy than we do. The Russians use there aircraft more as a close air support system. Indeed the KA-50 seems to have more in common with an A-10 Warthog than an Apache helicopter. Big cannon (forward firing), massive amounts of armor plating, good stability in forward flight. Ironically the high time Hokum pilot was killed last year when he attempted to land his helicopter with major rotor damage when he was in a position to use the ejection system. The Russian way is to fly race tracks, or high speed routes to an initial point, then climb to altitude for a diving attack run. This and the Russian experience in Afghanistan that required them to operate in high mountain environments at high altitude I think has lead them to this methodology. I will defer to Mr. Grau on this issue if I'm off target.

As to the issue of CSAR and extraction. This is an area that the Army is finally waking up to. Until recently most Army aviators felt that if you went down in Indian Country, you were on your own, to "hoof it" back to friendly lines. With the hyperpress capability the modern world (Durant in Somalia, USAF CPT in Bosnia, F-117 pilot Serbia) we are starting to learn how to do extraction. Aviators now have a survival vest with leg straps and d-rings. The Special Ops aviators developed it and the rest of us thought it a great idea. Indeed the one Apache crew that was shot down in Iraq ran over to their wingman's aircraft and clipped themselves to the landing gear. Most of the missions now flown in the Balkans either have a Blackhawk along for crew extraction or have one with a reaction force standing by at the base on notice to fly out and extract the crews. Most helicopter crews will try to extract their Buddies themselves.

The British have taken up on the GRIER concept Mike talks about for their Harriers, mostly because flying around outside at 300-500 knots is not good for ones health. I don't mean to dismiss the concept. I actually think it is a good idea. Hanging around on the outside of a helicopter in the dead of winter does not seem to be a good idea. But how many do you take on a mission? Every pod is one less station for munitions. I really like the concept of having enough room in an attack aircraft for a couple of extra people somewhere. That however causes the designer dilemma of how to deal with the requirement with all the other factors. More space equals more weight, equals bigger engines, equals more gas, equals bigger airframe....

As long as the main propulsion for Army Attack airframes is above the aviators head, I do not see an ejection system being viable. With the flight profile still being low (> 1000 ft) manual bail out would be highly risky (by the time an aviator decides he can't deal with it he has probably lost half his altitude). Think we are making great strides in CSAR, we have room for improvement. New survival radios with GPS beacon give us the ability to pinpoint downed crews for rapid extraction (the F-117 pilot last year). Still the Army needs to continue to develop internal and joint doctrine."

REPLY:

The Russian pilot was trying to save the Ka-50, Russia is cash-strapped, he was being heroic to help the program not hesitant about the ejection seat system in my opinion.