Personnel and Cargo Pods (EXINT, GRIER, and other types)

[Maverick]

G'day Jeffry,

Whilst I'm aware of the baggage pods in USAF service I wasn't aware of their Navy use.  That said, from what I've read, the pods I was mentioning weren't 'baggage' pods per se, but rather pods specificially developed for SF resupply allowing 'deniable' resupply missions.  Were these to have doors specifically fitted, I think it would detract from the covert nature of the mission.  I'd expect instead that the pods would merely have a break point at a natural join in their construction.

Regards,
Mav

[Jeffry Fontaine]

The Navy also had a jet starter unit that was built around an Aero fuel tank shape.  Fitted with a nose cap over the air intake and tail cone for the exhaust it also had four wheels and a pair of suspension lugs to fit it to a standard bomb release unit.  It was designed for deployment to forward bases to support operations while the remainder of the squadron's support equipment was stuck in transit. 

All of these fuel tank shapes were quite robust in construction due to the need to withstand maneuvering while attached to the aircraft.  If jettisoned in flight, they would impact with the ground and remain relatively intact unless there was a full load of fuel inside, then it might be quite different.  Fire bombs on the other hand would not survive such an impact due to the nature of their construction which was designed to come apart on impact with the ground expelling the incendiary materials in the process.  Construction of a cargo container for covert resupply missions sounds more like a case of improvisiation and not necessarily doctrine.  Which is similar to what took place during the siege of Khe Sanh, the Marines were resupplied by air and several expedient means of supplying water were attempted.  One of the more successful was to use the artillery propellant containers (aka powder cans or powder tanks) for the 155mm and larger artillery systems.  These containers were simply rolled out the back of the helicopter from a relatively low altitude and they survived the fall to be recovered by the troops on the ground. 

More recent expedient means of delivery have been developed where the material in this case MRE meals for humanitarian missions were simply placed in large cardboard boxes called a "Tri-Wall" container and released from the back of the aircraft.  The MRE meals and the Tri-Wall container separated after release and the MRE Meals decended to the ground individually to be gathered up by the people that were to receive them. 

[Freightdog862]

The mock up of the EXINT pod is now on dispaly at the Gatwick Aviation museum (at least it was a couple of year back, in the room gatherng dust with the engine collection). It would look pretty good on a Harrier GR7/9, the mock seems to be made of plywood....
Colin

[Mossie]

Found these on Secret Projects, a Fairey Barracuda & a Ju-88 Stuka with different types of personnel panniers:

[Mossie]

And a pic showing just how cosy Avpros EXINT pods would have been!

[Mossie]

The infamous Spitfire 'Body Bag'.  These date from 1943 (there seems to be an earlier proposal for similar bags in 1940).  Exercise Spartan one of the largest pre D-Day exercises had been carried out & it was intended that when France was invaded, Squadrons would relocate with little support from elsewhere.  They basically had to take what they could carry with them, including personell.

In order to increase the amount of ground crew that could travel with the squadron, it was proposed that they would travel in canvas bags that simply rested on the wing.  A large strap was hooked around the cannon & a smaller one attached to the trailing edge.  And that was it, nothing much to prevent the bag moving about & God forbid if the stitching wasn't up to scratch!  The aircraft couldn't maneuver violently either & I can only imagine the discomfort & sense of claustrophobia.  It's not a surpise that no records exist of them ever being used operationaly or even in testing.

[HOG]

Hoyhoy`al
fraid I don`t bother much with the modern world but I have these scoured from the web, don`t know where, but they might be of interest.


Cheerz 
G

[Mossie]

Nice find Gary!  Definite difference between the Germans & Brits, the German designs seem to be well thought out designs with aerodynamics, passenger comfort & safety taken into consideration.  The Brit designs, if I'm polite, they seem to be from the 'it'll be alright' school of engineering.  A crate knocked together for the Barracuda & a canvas bag for the Spit, neither seem to have taken a lot of thought!

In the end, both nations would put any extra 'passengers' in the fuselage spaces, the Brits using it rarely for insertion, the Germans using it for ferry on occasion.  This had it's problems, would remain in aircraft with pods that.  If a fighter was 'jumped' it had extra weight that might impede it.  If the aircraft was shot down or developed a problem, the pilot was usually unwilling to bail out & leave the passenger & would unfortunately result in two deaths in nearly every situation.

[jcf]

Nice find Gary!  Definite difference between the Germans & Brits, the German designs seem to be well thought out designs with aerodynamics, passenger comfort & safety taken into consideration.  The Brit designs, if I'm polite, they seem to be from the 'it'll be alright' school of engineering.  A crate knocked together for the Barracuda & a canvas bag for the Spit, neither seem to have taken a lot of thought!

The Barracuda pods were far more than just a "crate knocked together".

Each pod carried two paratroops, sitting in tandem - not lying down, and the drop
doors were controlled by the pilot. Successful live drops were made, but it was not used
operationally because it was felt that the psychological effect of being cooped up for long
periods was too hard on the paras. The pods were never intended for dropping 'secret agents'.
Info from  - Fairey Aircraft since 1915, H A Taylor, Putnam 1974 (1988 NIP reprint)

Jon

[Jeffry Fontaine]

While I have never had the pleasure of playing HALO I have encountered a few examples of the equipment and other hardware offered in the game some of which has caught my interest.  The 3D Warehouse has several contributors that are extreme fan-boys of HALO which made it all that much simpler for me when I found a couple flavors of the HALO supply pod or the contributor's interpretation of what the supply pod looks like in the game.  I will leave that to the people that actually have the game and know what it looks like to tell me otherwise.  I found both pods to be lacking in details, the first example shown here as the first attached image is pretty much how I found it on the 3D Warehouse.  I added dimensional data for the pod length and diameter but it was pretty much just like you see it in the first image.  I made a few improvements to it as you can see in the second image and it looks more like a parachute supply container now and all it needed was a parachute.  I searched and found a couple representations of parachute but all were lacking something so I created my own using the nose section of the Little Boy bomb shape as the starting point and added a few more details to make it look like a parachute.  The risers are just lines drawn from the canopy down to the container and they look much darker in these views than they do up close.  Still it looks like a parachute and it needed to be attached to the container and not being a qualified rigger or having the appropriate TM/FM on rigging of parachutes handy I just took a wild guess at what it should look like.  It was fun, it was educational and that is pretty much the whole reason for creating these things. 

[Jeffry Fontaine]

Here are the rest of the screen shots of the supply container and the parachute from a couple of different angles.  If anyone wants a copy of the actual SketchUp file I will be happy to share that just send me an eMail.

[Jschmus]

Those pods look pretty cool, but I've gotten the impression that they're dropped in-game, from Pelicans at very low altitude, without benefit of parachutes or other devices.

[Jeffry Fontaine]

Those pods look pretty cool, but I've gotten the impression that they're dropped in-game, from Pelicans at very low altitude, without benefit of parachutes or other devices.

Probably due to lack of research on the subject before writing the code for the game.   

[Weaver]

Polikarpov R-5 fitted with pods for eight men on each wing and called a G-61:




Posted on Twitter by ODIN: https://twitter.com/OceaniaDefence/status/964708753428762625

Also on Twitter, lots of nice EXINT pod artwork:

[sandiego89]

Thanks, I had never seen that artwork for the Joint Strike Fighter contenders. 

It could have been a bad day if the soldier hopped into the nose intake of the F-32, which shared a similar shape to the POD