Industry Interview
Special Operations Technology Magazine, Volume 4, Issue 3, March 2006

Ted Strong started jumping in 1958, and in 1961 he founded Strong Enterprises. He built the first tandem jumping system in 1983, and he is credited with the successful design and testing of a personnel-on-board vehicle, manned from aircraft exit to landing, and with the development of the SCREAMER Project.

Q: Could you give me an overview of Strong Enterprises?

A: Strong Enterprises became known worldwide as an industry leader in quality and innovation, design and manufacturing, building round parachutes from four inches up to 98 feet in diameter and ram air parachutes up to 1,200 square feet. We are a full-line, full-service manufacturer able to develop, manufacture and test any category of airborne deceleration equipment.

Q: What innovations do you currently have in production?

A: We developed a low-cost, high-speed aerial delivery technique used for position re-supply and sustainment. It utilizes a steerable ram air drogue [RAD] parachute that is static line-deployed upon cargo exit from the aircraft at 25,000 feet. Tested with up to 10,000 pounds, we named it the SCREAMER system for its high rate of air speed. The system is autonomously guided with an intended target offset of five to seven miles. The small RAD has a high wing loading which creates the rapid descent and high horizontal velocity, providing a glide ratio of 2:1 or more. The RAD stabilizes and flies the load to a predetermined point or line above the landing zone. The recovery parachute provides a stable, smooth rate of descent, for a soft landing on target—5.5 minutes from 25,000 feet mean sea level. The main advantage of the fast descent rate is that the payload spends less time in the air, minimizing exposure to unfriendly response. Its horizontal velocity also allows for drop operations in more adverse weather conditions, day or night.

Q: So what makes Strong Enterprises’ products stand out?

A: The SCREAMER, being a fast, robust, low-risk method of delivering a payload, is capable of penetrating moderate to high winds aloft. The project has evolved to the point where it now achieves regular success, with up to 10,000-pound payloads. Software development improvements are being continuously implemented in an effort to hone circle error probability and overall system reliability to 100 meters using a target offset of up to seven miles. Because our system transitions from the RAD to a round cargo parachute at a low altitude of 500 feet, we’ve eliminated the need to guide the system all the way to landing, which removes the possibility of overflying or falling short of the intended target. Another positive aspect of the 2K SCREAMER system, as it is currently in production, is that the same equipment is used for payloads of 800 to 2,200 pounds. No parachute changes are necessary for differences in payload weight, and a ready-to-go system can be programmed and rigged to the payload within thirty minutes.

Q: How would you characterize your position in the marketplace?

A: Strong Enterprises has become known for creating the forces that drive the parachute industry. This strategy allows us to be positioned as the source for the ideas and products that we alone have made available to the market for over 40 years and will continue far into the future. Strong Enterprises also offers its customers a full range of research and development skills with the ability to take customer’s ideas all the way from concept, through testing and manufacturing to deployment in the field. Our philosophy is best expressed in our company motto, “The parachute company with imagination.”

Q: How long have you been doing business with the military?

A: We’ve been developing products for the world’s military market for over 30 years and providing emergency parachute systems to pilots and their crews, developing a Military Dual Hawk Tandem system complete with accoutrements for cargo delivery. The Military Tandem Tethered Bundle is in wide use today. We also invented a way of delivering small vehicles from aircraft to the ground with up to eight military specialists onboard. Deployed at high speed into any kind of terrain and fully operative within seconds, our Airborne All Terrain Vehicle [AATV] provides fast, reliable transportation in all kinds of terrain and allows personnel to carry more equipment and supplies for carrying out their missions.

Q: What are your long-term plans and goals?

A: We are currently expanding the SCREAMER project to a larger scale, developing and successfully testing the 10,000-pound load. Still in its early phase of development, we are very optimistic about the future of this 10K project. We have also written a proposal for 30,000 pounds using the same successful technology. The success of our AATV manned vehicle does leave me wishing I had the time to design and drop an airborne bus with thirty people on board.