ECBC engineers provide wearable solutions for Joint Service Airmen Mask Program

ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. – Protective equipment is an essential part of any Warfighters' uniform. During the Desert Storm and Desert Shield conflicts, the protective mask and hood that were part of the Mission Oriented Protective Posture presented comfort, thermal, thirst, bodily waste, and claustrophobia issues for flight crews. Every service across the Department of Defense was facing similar issues.

In order to address these concerns the Joint Service Airmen Mask program was initiated. Within the U.S. Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center's Protection Engineering Division, Don Kilduff, the program manager (PM) for the JSAM Apache mask system, and Jon Sampson, the deputy for the JSAM Rotary Wing mask system, have been working on solutions to mitigate these issues by providing a new design that allows flight-crews to don and dock their masks in-flight in a matter of seconds without removing their helmets. This is accomplished by designing a removable face plate that can easily attach and detach from the hood.

"One way we illustrate the differences in the system to flight crews is we put one guy in a legacy system and another in the JSAM system and then order them pizza for lunch. The guy in the JSAM system can easily eat," Sampson said. "This is important because the Warfighter has to wear these protective suits for four, six, or even eight hours at a time."

Initially, JSAM was a single program to replace all airman masks. "The basic challenge was that we started a joint mask program for a one-solution-fits-all application, but with more than 130 different platforms, five different helmets, and a variety of air-crew equipment it becomes difficult. Over time, we have split the JSAM program into five different systems to meet the needs of the airmen across the DoD," said Kilduff who has been a part of the program since its inception in 1999.

When JSAM created an Apache program in 2007 there were some "safe to fly" issues with the mask and hood because the field of view was not better than the legacy system. Kilduff and his team made adjustments to the lens, completed fielding in 2009, produced the redesign to that in 2010, then finished fielding the redesign in 2012. Currently the team is working on the next iteration of the mask because the Apache helmet was redesigned. The new mask is anticipated to be fielded in 2014.

"Imagine, the Soldier is looking at a TV monitor in one eye and flying with the other. The crosshairs for the weapon are on that camera, but along the side of the screen is also flight symbology providing the Solider with vital information. The changes to the mask optimized the Soldier's ability to see the sighting system by maximizing the field of view," Kilduff said, explaining the lens readjustment.

The team also discovered some comfort issues with the mask's harness design in conjunction with a particular helmet used by the Navy and Marine Corps. After some significant prototyping efforts, the mask is now reported to be sufficient to wear over an extended period of time. Currently, the Rotary Wing team is in the production qualification test phase, and is continuing air-worthiness testing while making slight design modifications. The mask must qualify for each aircraft for all services, which is an extensive process, especially since each service has different testing requirements.

The teams in the Protection Engineering Division have used the expertise from across ECBC to provide an improved product within a manageable budget. The teams worked with Advanced Design and Manufacturing (ADM) Division to make rubber parts and castings to create hard rapid prototypes, which allowed the teams to perform weight, space, and compatibility assessments of the model assembly before making roughly $20 million worth of tools.

The teams also utilized the Environmental Chambers, the Test, Reliability and Evaluation Branch's test equipment, the QFS Chamber, and the Protective Equipment Test Branch's SMARTMAN capabilities during their design and testing phases.

Kilduff said having all of these resources available here at ECBC is what is exceptional about ECBC--ADM: the various chambers and testing equipment are all consolidated on one campus. Kilduff explains the synergy at ECBC, "While contractors have access to these same capabilities it is hard to find the capability that ADM has all in one spot, and because they are accessible in-house we can influence prioritization more easily than industry can," said Kilduff of the synergy.

The JSAM program offers a unique capability to Warfighters, to be face free and have the face plate ready within a few seconds without interfering with the helmet. Kilduff and Sampson both said that many within DoD have expressed excitement at these significant improvements and see the new design as being extremely useful in theater whenever a chemical/ biological threat is perceived.