Russian firm Starts Testing Parachute System to Air Drop Heavy Armored Vehicles

Russia’s Technodinamika Group has started conducting preliminary trials of a parachute system meant to airdrop heavy armored vehicles - including the Typhoon vehicle weighing 18 tonnes – with personnsel inside.

"We are carrying out a piece of very important experimental design work dubbed Parachute. It is intended to airdrop large-size hardware, first of all, the Typhoon-VDV [airborne infantry fighting] vehicle weighing 18 tonnes. The same platform will be used to airdrop the Tigr vehicle weighing 9 tonnes. Both vehicles, which are designed for airborne force mobility, will be airdropped with the platform developed as part of the Parachute R&D work," Technodinamika CEO Igor Nasenkov was quoted as saying by Russian state media.

The newly developed payload platform with the parachute system was airdropped with a weight of 9 tonnes and subsequently with a mass of 11 tonnes. The airdropping tests will eventually increase the payloads to 18 tonnes, Nasenkov said.

The Russian Airborne Forces are scheduled to receive air-dropped version of the 4×4 K4386 Typhoon-VDV armored vehicles starting 2021.

The Typhoon-VDV armored vehicle features a 4x4 wheel configuration, composite ceramic armor protection, and reduced unladen weight. It can be outfitted with a Kord large-caliber machine-gun, a remotely controlled weapon station with an automatic 30-mm cannon and a PKTM machine gun.

Typhoon-VDV is powered by a 350-horsepower engine and an automatic transmission, capable of accelerating this vehicle to 100kmph.