Kyle Mizokami
Since World War II, United States Army paratroopers have trained to jump out of airplanes to seize critical objectives. Once they’re on the ground, however, lacking trucks and infantry fighting vehicles of their own, they tend to be limited to walking as a means of transportation. That could change soon—the service is exploring powered paragliders as a means of battlefield transportation.
Filling the Flying Soldier Gap
As originally reported by Soldier Systems, the Army recently solicited ideas on a Personnel Air Mobility System, or PAMS for short. According to the Request for Proposals notice, the service wants a powered paraglider system capable of “addressing a capability gap to provide unit organic personnel air mobility to support freedom of movement in contested environments.
“Future battlefield threats,” the proposal explains, “are expected to require dispersed operations by small units in complex, contested environments. Traditional air assets, including fixed wing and rotary wing transport aircraft, will likely be unavailable for the movement of small teams due to supporting other missions and the difficulty of operating these vehicles in anti-access/area denial threat areas.”
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