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At Fort Carson, CO, the impact of long-term, intense military training on vegetation and topography is becoming increasingly evident. After more than 20 years of intense training, vegetation is so reduced that it adversely impacts the quality of military training. In addition, large gullies have developed in some locations, making navigation by tracked vehicles difficult, if not impossible. Unless training use and proper land management are brought into balance, similar results can be expected to develop at the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site (PCMS) as training expands in that area. This report presents a return-on-investment (ROI) study of the benefits that should result from implementing a long-term vegetation management program at Fort Carson and PCMS. Study results show that rehabilitation and maintenance are cost-effective for the Army. Estimates of the Government's savings as Fort Carson and PCMS vary from over $299 million to more than $1.65 billion. Depending on assumptions about the replacement value of site facilities used, the ratio of cost savings to expenses for implementing a rehabilitation program varies from a low of 5, if original facility and land costs are held constant, to a high of more than 27, if current replacement costs are considered.

In November 1983, the final report for the initial crashworthy cyclic control stick effort was published. The report detailed the development and testing of a purely mechanical self-contained crashworthy cyclic control stick equipped with load-limiting and separating joint. The joint was to limit impact loads transmitted to a crewmember. This report covers the additional development and testing of this concept by Simula Inc. to further delethalize the separating crashworthy cyclic control stick. Using an impact load-limiting grip pad and reduction of the moving mass to reduce the inertial forces, two configurations were subjected to static and dynamic pendululm testings. Additional destructive static tested in a full-scale dynamic test using an anthropomorphic dummy and a vertically stroking UH-60A Black Hawk crewseat. Testing demonstrated that the delethalized stick worked as intended when struck by the dummy. It also showed that the loads transmitted to the dummy were far less than with conventional sticks.

This five-volume publication has been compiled to assist design engineers in understanding the design considerations associated with the development of crash-resistant U.S. Army aircraft. A collection of available information and data pertinent to aircraft crash resistance is presented, along with suggested design conditions and criteria. The five volumes of the Aircraft Crash Survival Design guide cover the following topics: Volume I - Design Criteria and Checklists; Volume II - Aircraft Design Crash Impact Conditions and Human Tolerance; Volume III - Aircraft Structural Crash Resistance; Volume IV - Aircraft Seats, Restraints, Litters and Cockpit/Cabin Delethalization; and Volume V - Aircraft Postcrash Survival. This volume (Volume II) contains information on the aircraft crash environment, human tolerance to impact, occupant motion during a crash, human anthropometry, and crash test dummies, all of which serves as background for the design information presented in the other volumes. Keywords: Crashworthiness, Crash landing, Crash resistance; Biodynamics., See also Volume 3, AD-A218 436. Revision of Aircraft Crash Survival Design Guide, 1980, Volume 2, AD-A082 512.

In helicopter crashes, a potential source of injury is crewmember impact with the cyclic control stick. This program sought to alleviate that hazard through the development of a crashworthy cyclic control stick retrofittable to the UH-60A Black Hawk and AH-1S Cobra helicopters. Concepts examined for this application included those employing frangible, deformable, telescoping, collapsing, and separating sticks, as well as the cutters. The selected design was a slip joint separating stick, with an energy absorber, activated by crewmember impact. Four prototypes were fabricated and tested, both statically and dynamically. The newly designed sticks were shown to withstand specified emergency loads, while separating at crash impact loads of 1/2 to 1/3 that of conventional sticks. Further, the energy-absorbing capacity of the stick prevents completion of stick delethalization motion for loads of very short duration and thus minimizes the risk of inadvertant separation. (Author)