Obscure Personnel recovery/extraction method, similar to Fulton's Skyhook

[AeroFranz]

I am looking for more information regarding the use of a personnel extraction method devised during WWII, which involved an aircraft equipped with a hook snagging a wire strung between two posts and attached to a man in a harness.
I found some information here
http://www.combatreform2.com/man_pickup_manual.pdf (i know, it's combatreform, but it does have good documents! )
and the attached pictures show the concept.

does anyone know what the actual name of the system is, and in which occasions it was employed operationally?
In particular, i'd be curious to know what the aircraft end of the system looked like...there must be something like a damper or an elastic spool on the aircraft to reduce some of the initial shock ???

 

[TomS]

I think this was probably the M-80 glider retrieval system, which evolved from systems developed for airmail. I found an interesting monograph on the development of this system posted by the Silent Wings museum dedicated to the history of US military glider forces:

http://silentwings.ci.lubbock.tx.us/images/Web%20Content/WWII%20USAAF%20Glider%20Aerial%20Retrieval%20System.pdf

 

[AeroFranz]

wow, thanks for the excellent document! I wasn't hoping for this much. ;D
I just thought that the patent office might have something on it. Now that I know what this was called, i stand a chance of finding it.

 

[RyanC]

US Navy gets into the act too.

 

[hole in the ground]

Do they just tow the poor person all the way home or is he retrieved into the bomb bay?

 

[Orionblamblam]

Do they just tow the poor person all the way home or is he retrieved into the bomb bay?

Actually, this being the US Navy, they just tow the guy through the *water,* trolling for sharks. Then when sharks actually do appear... it turns out the guy they're towing is a US Marine genetically engineered from a gorilla, so he just knocks the shark upside the head, grabs it by the tail, and *then* they get pulled up into the bomb bay. At that point specially trained US Navy surgeons attach fricken' laser beams to the sharks head, reprogram it's brain to have an unquenchable hatred for Uncle Joe, and then it's paradropped into Soviet harbors.

Why else do you think the Soviet Navy never really had a good supercarrier capability? Because lasersharks kept chopping them up the moment they hit the water.

 

[hole in the ground]

:
hmm...
my original point being that on larger aircraft I can see how they get the person on board, aided by extra crew men. But in the case of the Canberra there arent any available and there isnt a handy rear loading ramp to retrieve them through.

 

[shaba]

canberra thats a neptune ;D.

 

[AeroFranz]

THe original recovery system was used on C-47s...so maybe all you need is a side door aft of the wing.

 

[TomS]

They used the P2V Neptune for Fulton extractions quite a bit, and I believe the recovery was done through the bomb bay.

I found a pretty illuminating Popular Science article about the process via Google Books. It includes pictures of a recovery using a P2V, but some of it may have been staged on the ground.

 

[hole in the ground]

canberra thats a neptune ;D.

ah, you are of course correct, my bad.
Still looks remarkably Canberra esk to my mind

 

[FutureSpaceTourist]

US Navy gets into the act too.

Doesn't this appear at the end of one of the Bond films when Sean Connery plus 'companion' get whisked out of a dinghy/life raft? (I think it was either Dr No or From Russia with Love - I can't remember!)

Update: Doh! Sorry, it was Thunderball and according to Wikipedia it was a sky hook-equipped U.S. Navy Boeing B-17.

 

[shaba]

the glider pick up rig evolved out of a mail pick up system used pre war discovered this looking for some thing else [http://books.google.com/books?id=H...ource=gbs_toc_r&cad=1#v=onepage&q&f=true/url]

 

[Lauge]

I see this, and all that keeps going through my mind is: Worlds.Nastiest.Wedgie. :-X

Regards & all,

Thomas L. Nielsen
Luxembourg

 

[Dynoman]

Sorry to resurrect an old topic, but I saw these pics while reading the USAF publication Apollo's Warriors about USAF special operations with a B-29 in 1951 and thought it would be of interest. The test subject was a pig. I guess they really can fly.

 

[quellish]

CIA has published some information on their use of Skyhook:


https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2012-featured-story-archive/skyhook.html


From memory, types Skyhook PRS has been used with include:

C-47
C-2
Neptune
C-130
B-17


The CIA B-17 was operated by IIRC Intermountain Aviation, a CIA proprietary based at Marana, AZ. At the time it's registration was N809Z. It was used in a James Bond movie, later ownership was transferred to another company where it did similar work until it was modified to an aerial tanker configuration.

 

[Dynoman]

Interesting program to deploy special operations troops in a capsule and recover them. Tests were conducted at Edwards AFB in 1989. The project was Lockheed's and involved a buildup of weight to 1250lbs for a snatch recovery of four people in a capsule. Known as Project 46, built by LAS Ontario and based out of Warner Robins Air Logistics Center, the story can be found in USAF publication Praetorian Starship- The Untold Story of the Combat Talon.

 

[quellish]

Interesting program to deploy special operations troops in a capsule and recover them. Tests were conducted at Edwards AFB in 1989. The project was Lockheed's and involved a buildup of weight to 1250lbs for a snatch recovery of four people in a capsule. Known as Project 46, built by LAS Ontario and based out of Warner Robins Air Logistics Center, the story can be found in USAF publication Praetorian Starship- The Untold Story of the Combat Talon.

Someday the bigger story will come out.


Interestingly enough there was a Russian counterpart, equipped with Soyuz seats. It could be dropped by a Bear. In the 90s it became public and was marketed as a way to get first responders to the site of a natural disaster.

 

[Dynoman]

To add to the list of Fulton PRS aircraft, the Army C-7 Caribou and the Navy S2F.

 

[LowObservable]

The test subject was a pig.

10:1 - In the event of fatal injuries to test subject, follow procedures defined in the attached sub-manual.

 

[Dynoman]

Fulton Skyhook drawings from Lockheed document.

 

[bob225]

Interesting program to deploy special operations troops in a capsule and recover them. Tests were conducted at Edwards AFB in 1989. The project was Lockheed's and involved a buildup of weight to 1250lbs for a snatch recovery of four people in a capsule. Known as Project 46, built by LAS Ontario and based out of Warner Robins Air Logistics Center, the story can be found in USAF publication Praetorian Starship- The Untold Story of the Combat Talon.

Isn't this system very similar to one of the senior citizen/ burt rutan/ scaled systems somewhere else on the site?

 

[Mat Parry]

Isn't this system very similar to one of the senior citizen/ burt rutan/ scaled systems somewhere else on the site?

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,20555.msg201781.html#msg201781

 

[xstatic3000]

Interesting program to deploy special operations troops in a capsule and recover them. Tests were conducted at Edwards AFB in 1989. The project was Lockheed's and involved a buildup of weight to 1250lbs for a snatch recovery of four people in a capsule. Known as Project 46, built by LAS Ontario and based out of Warner Robins Air Logistics Center, the story can be found in USAF publication Praetorian Starship- The Untold Story of the Combat Talon.

According to our own Stargazer/Skyblazer's excellent site, Scaled Composites worked on an eight-man capsule known as the PLADS (Parachute Low-Altitude Delivery System) Rockbox. Rutan's designation was Model 179, and like project 46 it was also designed for Lockheed and reportedly first flew in 1989.

Stargazer's site is the only reference that I have been able to find for the Model 179/Rockbox, and I haven't located any images other than his thumbnail below:




http://stargazer2006.online.fr/gallery/index.htm

 

[AeroFranz]

Fulton Skyhook drawings from Lockheed document.

Dynoman, these are quite nice. Thanks!

 

[jsport]

MTSI Announces Rapid Aerial Extraction System - MTSI

MTSI Announces Rapid Aerial Extraction System June 5, 2019 RAES: Rapid Aerial Extraction System from MTSI on Vimeo. Modern Technology Solutions, Inc. (MTSI), a 100% employee-owned engineering services and […]

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[publiusr]

How much could this be scaled up?

Imagine a bola like flyby rotorvator made of two asteroid hunks—back spun.

One is much small and is deposited.

How much mass could that lift off Earth?