If only the airlines managed passengers’ luggage so reliably: The wireless Precision Airdrop System (PADS) — developed by Reston, Va.-based Planning Systems Inc. — is proving to be a soaring success in its early deployment for U.S. Air Force supply missions in Afghanistan.

Using GPS technology, PADS allows aircrews to literally steer and fly a cargo pallet to a desired drop zone where once only a combination of gravity, timing and hope could achieve success.

Already an operational mission being regularly conducted by the Air Mobility Command, "with this system, we are able to drop from up to 25,000 feet and many miles away from the drop zone with exacting precision to troops who may be in an isolated base camp up on the top of a mountain ledge," Lt. Gen. Gary North, commander of Central Air Forces and the Ninth Air Force, said. "To be able to deliver at night and within feet of exactly where you put the ‘X’ on the ground is a wonderful thing."

Whereas materiel drops used to entail an aircraft’s flying vulnerably low and close to the personnel or area it aimed to supply, the PADS system distances a supplier from the destination while providing both with more accuracy and less risk.

According to Joe Dushan, product manager for PADS at Planning Systems, a subsidiary of Qinetiq, "the previous tactic used to come in very low to the ground to acquire the target and push the payload out the back, hoping to hit the drop zone. During [missions in] Bosnia, when the aircraft wasn’t allowed to get lower than 10,000 feet, it was not precise."

By using GPS navigation data, PADS delivers pallets by electromechanical actuators (square parachutes) while others are simply configured with dumb ballistic parachutes, Dushan said. "For guided systems in a cargo bay we can wirelessly transmit updated targets en route with [analysis of] wind systems down to the airdrop," he said. "In effect, we can re- target the loads instantly. The wireless signal goes from a laptop in the cockpit to the load in back, [all] in the time it takes for a light to turn on."

The advantages already seen in Afghanistan come with "an ability to get the aircraft at higher elevations, away from the threat," Dushan said. "Using traditional tactics makes them vulnerable from adjacent mountaintops." PADS’ performance in Air Force tests has improved the accuracy of drops from B17s by over 70 percent, and 56 percent by C-130 aircraft, he said.

Range depends on the particular system, the parachute, and the wind conditions, but Dushan says "it’s not uncommon under some circumstances to be fully 30 miles away and reach the target zone."

Sixty PADS systems have already been delivered to the U.S. Department of Defense, with an equal number due for delivery in another six months. The financial amount of the contract was not disclosed.

Planning Systems has been working on the PADS system with the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army since 1999. Dushan says that while current deliveries are being made with 2,000-pound payloads, testing is underway in larger weight classes, in sizes of 10,000 pound and 30,000 pounds. "The master goal is a 60,000-payload, but that’s some years away yet," Dushan said.