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The Army’s Stryker Infantry Carrier Vehicle is not normally intended to be delivered by airdrop. But the Army and the Air Force did take a look back in 2004 at whether it was feasible or not.
The Army’s Stryker Infantry Carrier Vehicle is not normally intended to be delivered by airdrop. But the Army and the Air Force did take a look back in 2004 at whether it was feasible or not.
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I remember this and I’m not sure the Stryker made it to TM Airdrop status but then I retired in ’09. One thing interesting is the two staged drogue/extraction and again, been out of the loop. The “big” canopies are G-11B or C low velocity cargo canopies each with a nominal diameter of 100′ and takes 3 Riggers to pack and 4 to lift in the packed configuration. Given that the Stryker isn’t in the TOE for the 82d Airborne I wonder if it is still airdropped. There were issues initially with the “lightweight” 155mm but believe that’s been ironed out as there is a Corps level Artillery (tube) asset equipped with that wonderful calibre artillery. Thanks…got the juices flowing!
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I strongly suspect the drop shown was the only one, or one of very few. And I suspect it was more about the Air Force certifying it than the Army really wanting to use it that way. AFAIK, the only real air transport the Army had an interest in was keeping the baseline ICV light enough and small enough to be air landed via C-130H. And it juuuuust barely could, if you left every bit of unit equipment off and the crew flew separately. With personnel, equipment and slat armor, it’s not flying on anything less than a C-17.
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Maxim #11: Everything is airdroppable at least once.
Did some work on Stryker in Afghanistan, the Army would fly the seriously damaged ones back to Dubai four at a time on some really big Russian plane. Replacements came in the same way.
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Here’s a pair of 777s going out the back door. And of course, what really caught my eye is everyone filming it. I guess it’s not a drop if everyone doesn’t have their camera out!
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In Europe they are working to develop a close relationship between 173rd and 2SCR so that Strykers can air land. I covered that a couple of months ago in Latvia with an airfield seizure in the dead of night, followed up by airlanding a Stryker company (-). Pretty cool.
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