CJPADSS

Prompted by this post over at Celestial Junk a few weeks back about a precision airdrop system called JPADS, I made some inquiries as to whether the CF was looking at acquiring this technology. As it turns out, they are.

The Canadian project is called the Canadian Joint Precision Aerial Delivery Standoff System (CJPADSS), and the Air Force's Advance Warfare Centre and the CF Experimentation Centre will be jointly testing the process in late February at CFB Petawawa. The intent is to reduce the risk to aircraft and crews and significantly increase responsiveness by introducing a day/night, all-weather precision airdrop capability - another arrow for the CF's quiver.

Given the work our pilots are doing in Afghanistan - especially the Tactical Airlift Unit - and some of the mission profiles the new CC-177's and C-130J's can take on, an enhanced Canadian precision-drop capability will be most welcome.

And not only by the Air Force either; the Army guys will like this system too. Although a smaller drop zone reduces the area the gents on the ground have to secure, there are other aspects of such a system that will make soldiers as well as aircrew smile. Unfortunately, some of those aspects aren't really fit for a publicly-accessible website that gets visitors on a daily basis from Kabul - at least not in my mind.

I look forward to hearing how the testing progresses, as I expect that if CJPADSS can do what we hope it can, my former Air Force colleagues will do what they can to get it into theatre as quickly as possible (with a UOR - an Urgent Operational Requirement - if need be).