Visit to Yuma Proving Grounds

We visited Yuma Proving Ground (YPG) yesterday with the "Behind the Big Guns" tour through the Yuma Visitor's Center. Patti would say that Dwayne probably enjoyed this trip a little more than she did, but we both enjoyed it. This is Patti's write-up about the trip, and hopefully we might get a "guest post" from Dwayne about it at some point in the future.

Our primary guide for this tour was the commander of the Proving Ground from 1996-2000, Rob Filbey. He was a wonderful guide and shared a lot of information with us. Any mistakes in the information provided, however, are due to Patti's inaccurate listening.

Our on-tour-bus guide

First: What is a "proving ground"? Well, as the name implies, it is a place where items are "proven". The Proving Ground receives items that are being provided to the US Army and they are tested to see if the item works according to specification. It is a testing facility to test the viability and efficacy of the item.

In earlier combat, soldiers may have experienced ammunition that had less than 1 in 10 that would work. Yuma Proving Ground intends to ensure that the military can count on their equipment (ammunition and other).

Most US military installations are training facilities.

Examples of testing that we heard about included:

• ground mobility:
• For wheeled or track vehicles or ammunition, they are in the "show me" business. The product would have a computer design that would indicate that it should be able to do "x" - e.g. climb a 60% slope, or successfully fire 99%+ of the time. YPG will test the edge of the envelope.
• For ammunition, they would get a statistical sample from a lot of ammunition and be responsible for lot acceptance. At YPG, it would be fired at bottom, midpoint, and top of range. It would be photographed as leaving the barrel, in the air, and on contact.
• For vehicles, they are looking at consistency and repeatability, documenting what happens on a trip, noting circumstances (e.g. weather). They have driving courses in the desert where they can test the performance of the vehicles.
• For example, we saw two inclines that would be used for testing of vehicles, one at 45% and one at 60%. The vehicle would be tested on its ability to climb the slope and stability on the slope with combat loading, but then it would also be stopped on the slope for a period of time - to determine if the brakes continue to hold, and it would still be able to start, release brakes, and shift gears after the fluids may have drained to the "downhill" side for a while, etc.
• Rob also told us that they have a mud course and a fording basin to check for the vehicles' capabilities in mud and in water.
• air delivery: 
• They have multiple airfields on the facility - one improved and 5-6 unimproved. These give the capability for wide ranges of air testing, for example, setting up a test script that would have an unmanned drone flying multiple thousands of miles with specified landings and take offs to see how it handles under a precise requirement.
• For parachutes, they will test the parachutes with different loads to determine its capabilities for either human jumpers or delivery of materials into a tactical position.
• One of the most interesting things we saw was in the parachute packing area - they had numbers of loads packed up ready to go up into an aircraft for a drop to test the parachutes. In those cases, the loads were just "ballast" - of a particular weight and size.
• One of the loads, though, was an Air Force vehicle that this group was designing and developing an air-delivery mechanism for. It was attached via webbed belts to an aluminum pallet and supported underneath with a large number of paper honeycomb (like corrugated cardboard blocks) for energy absorption. The gentleman who spoke to us there said that they plan for landing velocity of 22-24 ft/second. He said that the first drop of this vehicle they didn't have enough energy absorption and a part of the undercarriage was bent. In preparation for the next drop, they had changed how they packed it, and also had GoPro cameras installed on the pallet to capture video of how the materials performed.
• Another thing he told us was that the extraction of the load from the aircraft is a critical component - a vehicle like this could weigh up to 42,000 pounds. Having that move in the cargo bay of the aircraft is a challenge - so they want it to move and leave the aircraft as quickly as possible. For that to occur, there was an "extraction" chute that would be used to pull the package out of the aircraft in addition to the parachute that would be used to lower the package safely to the ground.
• They are working on steerable systems for supplies, to put GPS coordinates into the system and have the parachute deliver its load to a precise location.

We saw two tanks up close: the Bradley Fighting Vehicle and the Abrams M1. If I wrote the information down correctly, the M1 is fueled with a jet fuel (and the engine sounds like a jet engine) and it gets 1/3 mpg - that's right, 3 gallons of fuel per mile. It does cruise along the ground at 45 mph however, and can accurately shoot at that speed over rough terrain.

An interesting fact: Yuma Proving Ground controls the airspace over its land all the way to space. This means that no commercial traffic can fly over the Proving Ground. The other places where the airspace is restricted to space include: White Sands, Cape Canaveral, and the White House.

General Motors has a desert proving ground on the grounds of YPG. One of the factors that was indicated in wikipedia as an advantage of this location was the no-fly zone that prevented photographs of pre-production prototypes.
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_Proving_Grounds
http://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2009/Jul/0722_NewProvingGround.html

The tour ended at the Heritage Center. We only had 30 minutes there, but found that US and Canadian citizens can visit the base including the Heritage Center, on Tuesday-Friday. We hope to make a return visit.

Outside of Heritage Center

 Many of the places we visited on base we were not allowed to take pictures, but we were allowed inside the Heritage Center.

Encouraging people to pick up hitchhikers?

Appropriate as we are in tax season "Smash the Axis, pay your taxes". At this time, the tax filing deadline was March 15.

 What happens if you run over a big rock with dual tires?

Hmm, is that ok?

I wonder if this truck passed its test or not...

The payload on this parachute was much like what we had seen in the parachute payload facility where they were packing up an Air Force vehicle for drop testing.

Patti had a calculator like that!

Former President George H. W. Bush made a free fall jump into YPG during the time that our tour guide was commander on the base. He told us some great stories!

Some of the dates associated with YPG

Read more about Yuma Proving Ground here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuma_Proving_Ground
https://www.yuma.army.mil/Home.aspx