Company developing wind measurement technology to improve cargo airdrops.

• Position: LOGISTICS

When the Air Force conducts an airdrop mission today, pilots must fly planes over a drop zone multiple times in order to calculate wind conditions. A new system under development by Lockheed Martin could increase the precision of airdrops and cut down the time required to perform resupply missions.

Under an Air Force Research Laboratory contract, Lockheed Martin will adapt its commercial WindTracer technology to military use, enabling it to measure wind velocity and yield real-time data that can speed up airdrop missions, company officials said. Under the contract, the company will design a prototype airdrop unit for deployment at a test site.

The military version will be ruggedized so it can be airdropped at a forward operating base, for example. Once there, it will be stationed on the ground, sending data on wind speed and direction to planes dropping supplies, said Mark Lewis, a spokesman for Lockheed.

To conduct these missions today, the Air Force drops sensors that transmit GPS coordinates as they fall to the ground. This data is entered into a weather model to help troops predict the optimal location for dropping cargo loads, said Edward Ewald, program manager of WindTracer for precision air drop at Lockheed Martin. Information cannot be gathered until a sensor has landed, and many passes are needed to get a complete picture of wind conditions.

"It could be 20 to 30 minutes before they actually go back around and do the real airdrop of the cargo after they've dropped the sensors," he said.

Tim Carrig, director of coherent technologies...