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A SOLUTION FOR AIRCREW EMERGENCY PARACHUTE
CANOPY CONTROL TRAINING
Military aircrew are equipped with steerable emergency four-line release or slotted parachutes. These parachutes cannot be steered and exhibit oscillations if the controls are not deployed, which contribute to visual disorientation and difficulty in achieving a non-injury Parachute Landing Fall (PLF) at touchdown. When deployed, these oscillations damp out and the parachute achieves a forward velocity which may be steered into the wind to minimize ground relative velocity or to avoid collisions.
These aircrew members find themselves flying a military aircraft in what is equivalent to an aircraft engine-out emergency situation, having, at best, only received minimal training in its flight, and that under benign conditions at the beginning of their career. Subsequent training is limited to infrequent procedures training while suspended in a harness.
Compared to operational paratroopers or smokejumpers , training to proficiency is particularly critical because in emergencies there are no options on critical factors such as time of day or night, wind maximums or weather, and on landing terrain or hostile forces.
Given the obvious necessity of good aircrew parachute canopy control skills, what arguements have been made against providing training? Typically presented are issues of the hazards of real parachuting training to a highly (and very expensively trained) individual who hopefully will never actually need it, and fears about adding additional training time to an already busy schedule.
A solution is now in use for aviation physiology and emergency aircrew training: the low-cost STI Parachute Flight Training Simulator developed and produced in quantity originally to provide flight training for smokejumper and military personnel , who fly round and ramair parachutes on a routine operational mission basis. Flight simulators have been adopted by the military and commercial aviation communities as standard and essential training methodology for all conventional aircraft. Justifications are straightforward: safety, availability, economy, and efficiency.
Recent experience has shown that canopy control simulator training can occur simultaneously with standard recurrent suspended harness training, with little or no schedule impact, while providing an incentive which helps overcome previous objections due to discomfort from the harness during training.
One of the most important results of simulator training is the increase in aircrew's self-confidence in using their emergency parachute equipment when necessary. This decreases the natural tendency of personnel in an emergency situation to want to stay in an aircraft even beyond the point when procedures and good judgement would dictate otherwise. The low cost of this system is in sharp contrast to the enormous social, political, military, and financial consequences of aircrew losses.
More information about simulator training for Smokejumpers and Operational Military Personnel
More information about Parachute Malfunctions Simulation Training.
Other Questions about Parachute Simulator Flight Training
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