Spartans welcome new aerial delivery system

by Sgt. Eric-James Estrada
4-25th IBCT Public Affairs

5/23/2014 - JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska -- The Last Frontier welcomed a new equipment delivery system as elements of the Spartan Brigade conducted a drop of simulated supplies onto Malemute Drop Zone using a one-time use parachute May 16.

The 4th Quartermaster Company, assigned to the 725th Brigade Support Battalion, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, used the Low-Cost, Low-Velocity parachute. The parachute is made of recycled materials and is used to drop supplies for troops in remote locations or when conventional parachutes are not available - they are not used to drop personnel.

Chief Warrant Officer Ismael Ramosbarbosa, the senior airdrop technician in charge of heavy drops for the Spartan Brigade, said, "If there is a disaster in the Pacific that requires between the next 24 to 48 hours, [...] a resupply of water and food, we have the capability to supply that right away. In 48 hours we can push out 300 bundles of [...] bottled water and [meals ready to eat]."

The parachutes are pre-packaged by the manufacturer and only require military parachute riggers to affix them to supply pallets before being loaded aboard aircraft. The parachute system can safely drop a supply pallet weighing up to and including 2,200 pounds. Used to date exclusively and extensively in Afghanistan, Friday's operation marked the first use of the parachute in Alaska and the Asia-Pacific.

"We are going to be the first to drop the Low-Cost, Low-Velocity parachute in the Pacific," Ramosbarbosa said. "They've been dropping the Low-Cost, Low-Altitude parachute. It's a smaller parachute, but this one is the Low Cost Low Velocity."

There are three different types of parachutes currently being packed, shipped and maintained including the High Velocity parachute, the LCLV parachute and the Cross parachute. These parachutes are used for in-theater drops of materiel that cannot be delivered via truck or alternative transportation due to difficult terrain in places like Afghanistan. Each parachute uses a Low-Cost, Air Delivery System to deliver materiel.
As the war in Afghanistan has begun to wind down, so have deployments and needed equipment, such as the LCLV parachute system. Ramosbarbosa, who was recently deployed to Afghanistan and served as the theatre airdrop advisor, designed the plan to bring the remaining 45,000 bundles of LCLV parachutes back from Afghanistan and distribute them across the Army.

"There was an excess of air delivery equipment of this type of parachute. I developed a plan to make it feasible for the Army to bring parachutes out of [...] [Afghanistan] and free issue it to all of the rigging facilities in the Army," Ramosbarbosa said.

Select locations like Alaska, Japan and Germany were among the few chosen to support this endeavor due to their respective locations and ability to respond rapidly in the event of a natural disaster.

"When all these parachutes get to their destinations, we will be really prepared to support any aerial [mission in response to a natural disaster] like what happened in the Philippines."

For many riggers, this was their first time handling the LCLV and learning its procedures. The majority of the Army's training for aerial delivery has been the packing procedures for the G-12 Cargo Parachute Assembly, which has a 64-foot canopy and has to be recovered and turned back in to the Army supply system.

"Right now, our [riggers] in school are not training on this parachute and they don't touch this parachute until [they're deployed] and they get on-the-job training," Ramosbarbosa said. "They have basic rigging procedures, but this parachute has particular rigging procedures that they learn when they get to theatre."

Sgt. York Peters, a rigger with the Spartan Brigade, said he enjoyed his first time experience with the LCLV and appreciated the simplicity of the system.

"As opposed to the G-12, having to spend time packing it, and this comes packed and all you have to do is install it," Peters said. "It was new, but pretty cool. Not that many challenges besides having to learn how to install it on a [Container Delivery System] bundle."