J.R. Downing, B.A. Engstrom, M. Grove

Appreciable advances in the state of the art of parachute technology has been achieved in the last few years. Much of the improvement has resulted from the availability of special test vehicles which are capable of subjecting the test parachutes to environments which simulate the conditions to which the parachute would be subjected in its ultimate use. This paper discusses the two basic types of these test vehicles and their relation to the advances that have been made in parachute performance. One group of test vehicle that has been used extensively is a rocket propelled sled. This type of vehicle has shown itself to be excellent because of its ability to subject the test parachute to very closely controlled test conditions and its adaptability to highly reliable on-board recording techniques for test data acquisition. Parachutes up to 12 ft in diameter have been tested under conditions which develop loads as high as 100,000 lbs. The second type of vehicle that is especially important is the free flight missile. Several such vehicles are discussed which have been used for obtaining information on parachutes to Mach 2 at altitudes to 200,000 ft. Typical of these is the Cree Missile which is capable of being launched from an aircraft in either a free fall or rocket powered configuration for obtaining information at low altitudes. This same missile has also been carried aloft under a balloon to altitudes of above 100,000 ft for the obtaining of similar information during free fall. It is also capable of being launched vertically from balloons to obtain test points at still higher altitudes when rocket powered. The Cruise Missile is also ground launched from a zero length launcher when the test conditions are too extreme for either of the other methods of launching. In the ground launched condition, it is powered by several stag.es of solid propellant rocket motors depending upon the velocity desired and the altitude at which the test condition is to be achieved. In any of these launch conditions, as many as three of the missiles can be grouped together to achieve simultaneous test points on different parachutes and thereby minimize the cost of carrying out the research work. The paper emphasizes the importance that vehicles of this type played in the achievement of recovery systems that were utilized in bringing back· the warheads of several intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBM) and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) during the last two years. These programs relied heavily on the ability of the test vehicles of this type to simulate the recovery conditions realized by the ballistic missile nose cones so as to assure a high degree of reliability. This has resulted in no failures due to recovery system malfunctioning on both the Jupiter C and full scale Jupiter missile programs.

WGL-Tagung, Hamburg 1959

Conference Paper

englisch

A4, 7 Seiten

Jahrbuch der Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft für Luftfahrt, 1959; S.305-311; 1959; Braunschweig : Vieweg

NA

Bestellbar

1960