Low Cost Parafoil Deceleration Canopy for One Time Use

There is a growing need for Army re-supply and humanitarian aid via airdrop. Dropping from safe altitudes creates more and more demand for guidable decelerator systems to ameliorate wind drift and to accommodate horizontal offset of drop zones. At the same time, the practical exigencies of re-supply and humanitarian aid airdrop demands movement towards one-time use, disposable decelerator systems. At the same time, requirements for safety to the aircraft require more and more offset ability in decelerator systems in order to reach and accurately hit deployment targets from ever-increasing altitude and offset drop zones. Thus there is a growing need for inexpensive, one-time use, high performance decelerator canopies and control systems. There are today a number of potential avenues for the development and delivery of reduced-cost high performance canopies and systems for airdrop. It is the intention of this proposal to delineate the challenge and to explore these avenues.