Eyeing the drop zone

The training has focussed on ensuring air warfare officers, engineers, air loadmasters and pilots are qualified in tactical flying and dropping platforms of all sizes accurately onto a drop zone.

“The exercise is going really well. We have achieved our training objectives for personnel including dropping heavy equipment,” air warfare officer Squadron Leader (SQNLDR) Izak Pivac said.

“Our pilots have achieved formation flying qualifications as well.”

The training was vital for real life Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Relief situations where the Air Force would air drop equipment into places that needed it, he said.

The skills were used after the Kaikoura earthquake when C-130 crews dropped about 5,000 litres of water to the residents.

Dropping heavy equipment accurately involved a number of calculations that needed to be made by the air warfare officers, SQNLDR Pivac said.

“We calculate the release point based on wind, air speed, temperature, the weight of the equipment, the type of parachutes used, the number of parachutes and the position of where the load is sitting in the aircraft. Those parameters will then define what altitude and speed the aircraft needs to be flying.”

“All the drops have landed between 50m to 100m away from the target.”

The exercise also gave the pilots an opportunity to practice tactical flying, with low-level flying as low as 250 feet.

Working alongside the Air Force was the NZ Army’s 5 th Movements company, which built the platforms that were being dropped from the aircraft.

“It’s really handy to work with the Army. They came out to Ohakea to build the platforms we dropped. They identify different types of stores to build loads, developing the correct energy dissipating material package to withstand the rigors of an airdrop and then rigging them into different types of loads.

“This week we had a focus on heavy equipment platforms ranging from 8–16 feet in length,” SQNLDR Pivac said.

“We also work with the Air Movements personnel at Ohakea who loaded the aircraft. So we’re working with a few different units to achieve our training. “It’s good training for them to be given exposure to the C-130.”

By the end of the exercise air loadmaster Sergeant (SGT) Toby Priestley will have completed all his tactical qualifications.

The final qualification he needed was to work with heavy loads, he said.

“The heavy equipment ranges from 2,520 pounds (1,143kg) up to 42,000 pounds (19,050kg).”

The loadmasters have to rig a different system with extraction parachutes for those large platforms, SGT Priestley said.

“The system can be used to drop items like vehicles or large amounts of water in barrels, or as a way to drop a number of items at once,” he said.

“The exercise has gone well. We’ve had four days of flying and all the drops completed and on the drop zone.”

“Air dropping the heavier loads requires a more complex system compared to the other air drop types the C-130 can do. There are a lot of working parts that the loadmaster needs to check to achieve the air drop.”

– Sergeant Toby Priestley