Quick-rig delivery

Parachute and aerial delivery specialist IrvinGQ (Stand N2-265) is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2019, company founder Leslie Irvin having made the first successful free‑fall parachute jump on 19 April 1919.

In its centenary year, the company has been awarded a contract to demonstrate its ATAX aerial delivery system to the US Army. The contracting agency is the Army Futures Command, Combat Capabilities Development Command Soldier Center (CCDC-SC) at Natick, Massachusetts, with funding provided via Foreign Technology Assessment Support (FTAS) and the Foreign Comparative Test (FCT) programmes.

ATAX was successfully flight-tested from a C-130 by IrvinGQ in May 2018, and it has already been the subject of a series of US Army/Air Force ground-based assessments on an instrumented C-17 roller test facility, followed by tower drop tests at Natick. Air drop trials are likely to be conducted by the US Air Force in early 2020. The ATAX is a contender for the US Army's Rapid Rigging Derigging Airdrop System (RRDAS).

As its name suggests, RRDAS seeks an aerial delivery system that can be rigged and derigged in a matter of minutes, rather than hours. Using current systems, assets are often maintained on pre-prepared rigs, effectively tying them up as they await potential deployment.

Moreover, traditional systems use single-use cardboard decelerators that create considerable amounts of debris that is left on the landing zone.

ATAX employs reusable airbag deceleration packs that slot into the delivery platforms.

The system is modular to allow quick reconfiguration of multiple loads.