MVRsimulation’s Virtual Reality Scene Generator (VRSG) supports Combat Air Force Distributed Mission Operations (CAF DMO) training, providing consistent, highly accurate visual 3D models across all platforms engaged in live/virtual training, mission rehearsal, and distributed training operations. 3
VRSG real-time 3D model of the Meraj-4 radar (1) in VRSG’s geospecific Hajin, Syria terrain; as seen (2) by the JTAC trainee through the SOFLAM laser target designator, (3) on the RPAS sensor pod feed, and (4) by the A-10C pilot.
MVRsimulation’s VRSG 3D model library includes 90% of the CAF DMO list, and 95% of those designated mandatory, the majority with articulated parts, damage states, and accurate physics-based infrared/thermal signatures.
Experience the future of military simulation in the MVRsimulation booth (#1187) at I/ITSEC 2022 www.mvrsimulation.com
The MVRsimulation logo and VRSG (Virtual Reality Scene Generator) are Registered Trademarks of MVRsimulation Inc. © 2022 MVRsimulation Inc.Some people will do anything for money – including betray their country, their friends and their families.
The defence establishments of the UK, US, Australia, Canada, France and perhaps other Western nations are reeling from reports that for mer military pilots have been providing training for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.
It gives an ironic new meaning to the term ‘Red’ Arrows.
reportedly recruited. TFASA President Jean Ros souw claims “no laws were broken, no secrets have been leaked.” Surrounded, appropriately, by ostrich farms, the Oudtshoorn-based academy was previously the National Pilot Test School for South Africa, which was shut down in 2003 “due to US pressure” for its China affiliation.
The fees for the pilots have been described as “life-changing,” in the environs of a million dollars across three years, plus accommodations, maids and fast cars, for translating their taxpayer-funded airmanship knowledge to upskill Chinese pilots who will most likely apply the lessons to shooting down, possibly, former squadron mates and straf ing ships staffed by neighbours.
A former US Marine Corps pilot has been detained in Australia for allegedly training PLA pilots, and the US may attempt to extradite him. Daniel Edmund Duggan, an AV-8B pilot, had started a civilian recreational business called Top Gun Tas mania, but in 2014 moved to Beijing and became managing director of AVBIZ Ltd. His Harrier exper tise might reflect PRC interest in the rumoured J-18 ‘Red Eagle’ VTOL fighter. One report described him as a ‘former’ US citizen, implying he may have renounced his nationality, which could complicate American prosecution attempts.
In Britain, surprisingly, about 30 ex-RAF pilots, some reportedly from the elite Red Arrows demon stration squadron, don’t seem to have broken any specific current laws for training what is regarded as the West’s most likely peer combat ant. That seemed to be changing rap idly when the news came out during Liz Truss’ whiplash tenure as prime minis ter. Legislation was being proposed to make it a prison-time offence after first warning. One MP called for the rogue pilots to lose their citizenship.
Rick Adams Editor-in-Chief
“These potential traitors should be named, shamed and shunned,” railed retired Admiral Chris Parry. “I am dis gusted people think taking money for services which improve a totalitarian regime’s abil ity to prevail against democratic countries is in any way right.”
And yet, “the government of the UK has known for decades” – since 2002 – about the Chinese arrangement with the Test Flying Acad emy of South Africa, through which the pilots were
The pilots “don’t want to talk,” according to a ‘friend’: “They have everything to lose, and being identified will bury them. They don’t feel there’s a threat, obviously. The information they teach is very generic. But it is designed to improve the ability of the PLA pilots, so is far from ideal.” The RAF pilots’ experience may include Typhoons, Tornados, Jag uars and Harriers – types of fighters which the Chi nese might expect to engage in battle – and they are likely familiar with NATO tactics.
Treason-for-silver is nothing new, of course. A member of the House of Lords fed critical military information to the Japanese for 20 years in the run-up to Pearl Harbor. William Forbes-Sempill, a drinking buddy of Winston Churchill, and Brit ish pilot-turned-spy Frederick Rutland secretly helped accelerate Japan’s naval aircraft prowess. But Churchill and the UK government declined out of embarrassment to prosecute the aristocratic Forbes-Sempill, who went on to join pro-Nazi groups.
In Ukraine, the president of the highly regarded defence company, Motor Sich, has been accused of conspiring to supply parts for Russian helicop ters through cut-outs in the Middle East, Europe and Asia. Vyacheslav Bohuslayev, who retains Russian citizenship, is a long-time Putin and Yanu kovych sympathizer who attempted to sell the company to a Chinese firm after the 2014 invasion of Crimea.
Irrespective of existing laws, there are moral principles inherent in any dealings with a foreign power or foreign national (or shady colleague). Individual or government-sanctioned corporate mercenaries should be exceedingly cautious to whom they sell weapons systems, support mate rials, or training services. Today’s trading partner may quickly become tomorrow’s belligerent, and may turn your naïveté against you. More simply, be damn careful who you get in bed with.
Rick Adams, FRAeS Editor-in-Chief, MS&Tan
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In a close-run contest we reveal the winners, finalists, and honorable mentions as voted by MS&T readers.
How Relevant is the Metaverse to Military Simulation & Training? The metaverse is in the news everywhere, but how relevant is it to military simulation and training? MS&T’s Special Correspondent Andy Fawkes reports.
I/ITSEC on Track to Break Records. NTSA President RAdm (ret.) Jim Robb is interviewed by Halldale Group Editor Marty Kauchak in the run up to 2022 I/ITSEC.
SUPERNA PETIMUS: ‘We Seek Higher Things’. Although the trees along Queen’s Avenue have grown somewhat in the intervening half-century and the hallowed portals remain outwardly pretty much the same, almost everything else has changed. MS&T’s Martin ‘Dim’ Jones revisited the scene of some of the earliest of his many crimes.
Heading into the Clouds? Cloud and streaming technologies are already being used in support of S&T and, although a journey with hurdles, there seems to be a clear direction of travel towards a Cloud approach. MS&T’s Special Correspondent Andy Fawkes reports.
Building the eVTOL Training Nexus. Halldale Group Editor Marty Kauchak surveys early developments in the US DoD’s eVTOL pilot training activities.
Idea… to Reality? Aeralis at Stage 3. It is some 50 years since the UK aerospace industry produced a new training aircraft. That may be about to change. MS&T's Dim Jones visited the new Aeralis facility in Bristol.
“Very complementary with little or no overlap.” An interview with Peter Hitchcock about the Thales acquisition of RUAG S&T.
TSIS 2022 Highlights Training Modernization. There was more than the usual scramble for a seat in the 2022 Training & Simulation Industry Symposium (TSIS) auditorium; a record-breaking crowd of 950 attendees celebrated the return to the first “all-live” TSIS event since 2019. MS&T’s Chuck Weirauch managed to snag a seat.
Omega: A Ukraine-Driven Urgency. This year, MS&T's Dim Jones is happy to report, Covid constraints had been lifted, and the Omega conference attracted over 150 delegates from 14 nations.
The Antoinette Barrel – a Training Device upon Request. Excerpted from the forthcoming book, ‘All But Flying is Simulation – The Illustrated History of Flight Simulation’, by former MS&T Editor and Senior Correspondent Walter F. Ullrich.
On the cover: A formation of Aeralis AJTs over the south coast of England. Image credit: Aeralis.
Military Simulation & Training Magazine
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The international military simulation and training community has determined the year’s best of the best.
The MS&T Simulation & Training Awards program returned in 2022 with a record 64 nominations from organizations around the globe competing for top hon ors in eight categories. A very strong competitive field generated more than 8,000 online votes to help determine the winners. The nominees’ programs and products highlighted much more than innovation occurring across the military S&T sector. The organizations are focused on helping to compress the acqui sition timeline to provide their products and services to train ing audiences more quickly. At the same time they are expand ing the technology envelope to provide cutting-edge new and emerging technologies to meet customers’ requirements. This is truly a period of excellence in this S&T community!
This award recognizes the innovative use of AR/MR/VR/XR technologies to develop effective and efficient training and per formance support interventions. Application of A/M/V/XR spans a broad continuum ranging from education to individual and team training to individual and team performance support.
The Award Winner: Kratos Defense & Security SolutionsMixed Reality (MR) Mission Readiness Training (MRT) system. The Mixed Reality (MR) Mission Readiness Training (MRT) system developed by Kratos Defense & Security Solutions has nearly doubled combat mission rates for Helicopter Crews at the US Air Force Global Strike Command. Operational since October 2020, MRT is a complete turnkey solution that enables aircrew
students to train in an actual aircraft equipped with simulated weapons [Kra tos’ UH-1 Multi-Position Aircrew Virtual Environment Trainer (MP-AVET)] with other training audiences.
Finalist: Mass Virtual - Virtual Hangar Mass Virtual’s Virtual Hangar, built on the MassXR platform, is a proven US Air Force extended reality (XR) enterprise training solution fielded at 52 installa tions across the globe. Built with COTS development tools, Virtual Hanger is a cloud-based, customizable, rapidly deployable, and sustainable application used to train airmen in a variety of mili tary occupational specialties, including maintainers, aviators, first responders, and logisticians. It significantly reduces aircraft downtime for training and class room training, and increases student retention.
Finalist: SimCentric TechnologiesSAF-TAC Suite of Products
The SAF-TAC Suite of products is transforming the way virtual training is conducted in the international military simulation domain. Designed as the world’s first “Virtual Reality First”
Above Mixed Reality Training Improves
Image credit: VRAI.
military training synthetic environment. SAF-TAC is designed to harness the full capability afforded by VR and MR in military training. SAF-TAC is built using the state-of-the-art Unreal Engine.
This award recognizes the innova tive use of A/M/V/XR technologies to develop effective and efficient training and performance support interventions.
The Award Winner: VRAI - ReACT platform - armor crew VR simulation solution
Kongsberg’s Protector RS4 is a Remote Weapon System with more than 20,000 units in use globally. One Kongsberg RWS customer, the Irish Defence Forces, challenged them to transform how they deliver training. This transformation needed to focus on removing bottlenecks with key resources such as armor plat forms, weapons systems and instructors.
VRAI delivered a full-service, armor crew virtual reality simulation solution based on the company’s ReACT platform. Using ReACT, the entire simulator was created in about four months. The initial deploy ment of the product is VR/MR.
Finalist: Dynepic - MOTAR (Member, Operations,Training,Analytics, Reports) Dynepic’s commercial DX platform, white-labeled for the US Air Force as MOTAR (Member Operations Train ing Analysis Reports) under SBIR Phase III, powers an open ecosystem to meet time-critical Multi-Capable Airman train ing requirements and deliver innovative XR training technologies at “the speed of need.” MOTAR is known as the “Plat form of Platforms.” It facilitates a com mon training ecosystem and can host or link to other platforms via robust APIs and SDKs. Dynepic hosts companies like HTX Labs, Eon Reality, BUNDLAR, and many other industry-leading XR apps in a vendor-agnostic ecosystem.
Finalist: Eduworks CorporationObservational Motivation and Engage ment Generalized Appliance (OMEGA) OMEGA is a novel approach that enhances the value of A/M/V/XR train ing by automatically generating engage ment metrics. Student engagement is a key factor in learning outcomes but is
difficult to directly observe and measure in many training settings. Training using XR is gaining broad adoption across DoD, including the US Air Force’s new approach to Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training (Pilot Training Transforma tion (PTT)). Eduworks partnered with USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies to develop OMEGA.
This award recognizes innovative prod ucts that provide enhanced value to the military client’s education, training or human performance domains. The cat egory includes, but is not limited to prod ucts such as:
• Instructional media,
• Education and training devices or components thereof,
• Content development tools,
• Analysis and evaluation tools and methods,
• Performance support.
The Award Winner: Epic GamesUnreal Engine 5
Unreal Engine 5 (UE5) is the most recent version of Epic Games’ game engine, released in early 2022. This free develop ment platform enables developers and creators globally to realize next-gener ation real-time 3D content and experi ences with greater freedom, fidelity, and flexibility. As the development platform used in the creation of 53% of currently announced next-gen games, Unreal has also proven to be successful for simula tion and training applications, as it offers the ability to quickly incorporate realworld scenarios into actionable training environments in days. As the only major game-engine that offers freely accessible source-code, organizations can develop simulated worlds with ease. Unreal Engine 5 is bringing an unprecedented level of innovation by enabling users to reconcile data accuracy, photorealism and real-time applications.
Finalist: Booz Allen Hamilton - Tyndall Digital Twin Project
The Tyndall Digital Twin is a 1:1 virtual replica of Tyndall Air Force Base (AFB),
its infrastructure, landscape, systems, and processes. The Tyndall Digital Twin is connected and twinned to the real world through internet of things sensor feeds, authoritative data sources, and live building information models. The Digital Twin is a massive, interconnected, system-of-systems covering 6.63 sq mi along 10.23 miles of coastline, with over 6.3M sq ft of facilities. Unity game engine and Unity Reflect enabled the Tyndall Digital Twin to seamlessly import complex engineering models and make them easily explorable in augmented and virtual reality.
Finalist: CAE - VISTA (Virtual ISR Training Application) CAE VISTA (Virtual ISR Training Application) is a scalable solu tion that enables C4ISR professionals and other command-andcontrol operators to conduct targeted training, mission rehearsal, and short-notice assessment of proposed operational plans. The entire Task/Collect/Process/ Exploit/Disseminate and Command, Control, Communications, Computers (C4) ISR training audience can create their own scenarios, train to their specific individual or team training objectives, connect with other virtual training systems (air, space, ground, maritime, or cyber), and dramatically increase the flexibility, fidelity, and capacity of their on-the-job and exercise training. Further, CAE VISTA incorporates a fasterthan-real-time M&S capability that enables theater-wide mis sion level M&S from the seafloor to space in a Multiple Level Security environment.
This award recognizes innovative products that provide enhanced value to the military client’s education, training or human performance domains.
The Award Winner: Conflict Kinetics Corporation - Synthetic MarksmanshipTraining Systems (SMTS),aka the Gunfighter Gym
Above Unreal Engine 5 is the most recent version of Epic Games’ game engine, and was released in early 2022. Image credit: Epic Games.
Conflict Kinetics is an industry innovator in human performance optimization – specializing in small arms simulation and featur ing in-depth data collection capabilities for the life of the trainee via a Holistic Human Dashboard (HHD). CK’s Synthetic Marks manship Training Systems (SMTS), aka the Gunfighter Gym (GFG), has proven past performance as a unique solution pro vider for building individual, team, and larger unit-level capabil ity in lethality, survivability, readiness, decision-making under stress, and situational awareness. CK’s approach to combat marksmanship training replicates the physical, ocular and cogni tive challenges of combat. The Marine Corps Operational Test & Evaluation Activity, an echelon 1 testing and evaluation author ity, validated the effectiveness of CK’s GFG.
XCALIBR’s innovative data capture, analysis and feedback sys tem unlocks significant performance improvements by seam lessly connecting any/all firearms training (dry drills; blank firing; Airsoft; Simunition; static ranges; live firing tactical training, etc.) into a single measurable performance continuum. This “evolve to open” approach extends in-service capabilities, integrates novel systems, and exploits the untapped data they generate. It is a minimally invasive system that, for low physical burden (a mobile phone - 3 days battery life, wearables, small weapons sensor and exiting targetry - >400g [.8lb]), provides warfighters and trainers with real-time feedback on their live firing performance. The sys tem is in development with the UK’s Army and Royal Marines. It was being assessed by the USMC in October 2022 and is entered into US Army Expeditionary Warfare Experiment 23.
The US Air Force Academy opened its Multi-Doman Laboratory (MDL) in September 2021 with the mission to provide an immer sive and scalable learning environment to furnish future Air and Space Force leaders with a unique and lasting experience in the fundamentals of contemporary warfare and the employment of multi-domain effects in a dynamic joint landscape. As part of the MDL requirements, USAFA challenged ZedaSoft to improve and customize the company’s MiLToC role player software product to provide its cadets with a dynamic assignment capability for air and ground assets. With the addition of the new “Performance on Demand” feature, the performance of the MiLToC entity is more realistically based on parametric data queried from the custom er’s database at the time of transfer.
This award recognizes the innovative use of serious gaming technologies to develop effective and efficient education and training and performance support interventions.
Hadean has developed a ground-up, patented, distributed com puting platform that enables scalability, security and interoper ability, driving the metaverse and digital immersive experiences for enterprise, commercial, gaming and defense. Hadean has
worked with numerous public and pri vate sector organizations, ranging from BAE Systems to CAE to the UK MoD to launch next-gen groundbreaking solu tions to these industries. Hadean’s dis tributed computing platform provides the foundation to single synthetic envi ronment (SSE) technology for defense customers and industry system integra tors. Additionally, the platform’s true digital-twin ‘pattern of life’ (i.e., county/ city level simulation) simulations allow multi-domain defense functions (i.e., air, land, maritime, space and cyber) to deliver a coherent gaming-like synthetic training experience of the highest fidelity required to optimize training and force preparation, while optimizing the opera tional effectiveness.
Top Synthetic Marksmanship Training Systems (SMTS), aka the Gunfighter Gym. Image credit: Conflict Kinetics Corporation. Above Focusing on Freedom Square, Tallinn, a massing crowd is viewed in 3D.
Image credit: Hadean.
Finalist: Cubic Mission & Performance Solutions - Total Learning Platform Cubic Mission & Performance Solutions’ Total Learning Platform (TLP) utilizes a uniform and scalable common base line; the extensibility and reusability of digital content and components enable an enterprise-level approach to train ing. Creating an ability to deliver solu tions to the warfighter in a reduced time by “building it once and using many times” is just one strength of the com mon baseline approach. Having an abil ity to repurpose digital content not just for Immersive Virtual Training (IVT) and Interactive Multimedia Instruction (IMI) deliveries, but to also repurpose for mul tiple platforms that share common sub systems is a very powerful byproduct of the common baseline that is being lev eraged today, and envisioned in the near future by services around the globe: US Navy, Royal Saudi Naval Forces, US Coast Guard and others.
This award recognizes the innovative use of serious gaming technologies to develop effective and efficient education and training and performance support interventions.
The Award Winner: Radius Tech Defence Services Ltd.
Women In Command: Hybrid Threats Rising (WiCHTR) is a first-of-its-kind seri ous board game that combines military and humanitarian training along with equity, diversity, and inclusion elements. WiCHTR represents a novel approach both to gaming and empowering women. The game introduces the target audi ence to hybrid warfare (4th Generation warfare) and various decision-making mechanisms of modern warfare. Interna tional and national diplomacy dynamics are included in the game where players can maintain a prestige rate, apply sanc tions, and cooperate with international organizations. The game uses the 6D gamification and serious gaming tech nology framework. Importantly, it uses mathematical models and forecasting algorithms to create its own models.
This award recognizes exemplary small businesses in the military S&T domain. Our definition of a small business is “a non-subsidi ary, independent firm that employs fewer than 50 employees.” An exemplary small business leverages human capital, innovation and agility to grow and meet client needs, while cultivating a growing technical and social influence in the community.
HTX Labs is a Houston-based commercial software company (35 employees), founded in 2017, on a mission to accelerate the future of learning, delivering XR technology and high-fidelity immersive learning tools to elevate the level of proficiency and prepared ness of our next-generation workforce. HTX Labs designed and developed EMPACT, an Immersive Learning Platform, to address the challenges of bringing immersive technologies like aug mented, virtual, and mixed reality to the US DoD and enterprise customers. HTX Labs’ revenue has consistently grown for the
Top The Women in Command: Hybrid Threat Rising board game. Image credit: Radius Tech Defence Services. Above HTX Labs has developed the immersive learning platform EMPACT. Image credit: HTX Labs.
past two years, with year-over-year rev enue growth at 164% in 2021, and pro jected at 80% in 2022 (with significant reinvestment into EMPACT product).
Finalist: Conflict Kinetics Corporation
Founded in 2006 by President Brian Stanley, Conflict Kinetics is known as the industry innovator in human per formance optimization – specializing in small arms simulation and featuring indepth data collection for the life of the trainee via the Holistic Human Dash board (HHD). CK holds 5 patents and 3 pending in the methods and processes of optimizing a human being, rooted in decades of professional sports human performance techniques/trade secrets. They have proven past performance as a unique solution provider for building individual, team and larger unit-level capability for DoD and federal agencies.
Finalist: Ryan Aerospace
Prior to a 2018 US Army contract, Ryan Aerospace (Australia) had attended nearly 50 overseas trade shows and was
Above Dolly Oberoi, founder and CEO of C² Technologies (C²TI). Image credit: C²TI.
selling just three to five simulators annu ally. In 2019, they sold around 50 simula tors. In 2020, RA sold approximately 100 simulators. In 2021 (and so far into 2022)
RA sold around 200 simulators, show ing year-on-year growth in the last three years of around 100%. While RA’s main products leverage the benefits of new virtual reality and mixed reality technolo gies, the company also has products that use more traditional out-the-window vis uals such as screens or multi-projector.
The defense S&T community (industry and academia) plays an essential role in supporting military commanders’ devel opment and maintenance of capability and readiness. Within the community there are individuals who have demon strated outstanding and significant tech nical, professional and social leadership. This inaugural award recognizes female professionals from around the globe who continue to make their mark on advanc ing the S&T defense training enterprise.
Award Winner: Dolly Oberoi - Founder and CEO, C² Technologies (C²TI)
Dolly Oberoi’s knowledge of and expe rience within the simulation and train ing industry spans more than 32 years. After graduating from Harvard University with her master’s degree, she founded C² Technologies, an international women/ minority-owned recognized leader in education, immersive learning (AR/VR/ XR, Digital Twin, Metaverse), LVC, MOD SIM, aviation training, and digital trans formation. As CEO and founder, Oberoi is responsible for the overall management and growth of the company. In addition, her expertise, thought leadership, drive for innovative solutions, integrity, loy alty, and dedication are respected and admired among her customers and col leagues – C²TI serves Fortune 500 com panies, as well as public and private sec tors globally including aviation, defense, national security, commercial, healthcare, and higher education, while supporting a talented workforce of over 500 team members in more than 44 locations.
Finalist: Angela Alban - CEO, Principal Investigator, Simetri
Angela Alban has been and is a strong leader in the MS&T industry since start ing her business in 2009. Thriving under her leadership, her business has enjoyed consistent organizational growth while substantially increasing revenues. Her company doubled its revenues in 2019 over 2018, grew again by 15% in 2020, by 56% in 2021, and with over 15% projected growth for 2022. Her responsibilities as CEO include being the visionary for her business as well as building and lead ing the Simetri team. Angela’s sense of commitment to family, her business, and the community set her apart as a leader in the industry – for example, she serves on numerous not-for-profit boards in the S&T community as well as the business community at large.
Since co-founding Modest Tree in Hali fax, Canada (2011), Emily Smits has dedicated her career to changing how defense agencies, and the OEMs that serve defense, leverage innovative immersive training and immersive main tenance technologies to support their digital transformation goals. Modest Tree
Above Pioneer Award winner Randy Forbes. Image credit: U.S. Government.
delivers immersive, virtual, and fully inte grated digital products and services in response to some of the most complex issues faced by industries worldwide. Emily is a well-respected thought leader in immersive enterprise solutions and has worked with global manufacturers in aerospace, defense, and automotive, unleashing new business models for training, digital twins, and digital in-ser vice support.
The Pioneer Award recognizes an indi vidual, nominated and selected by the Awards panel, for consistent, long-term contributions to the art, science and community of military simulation and training.
The Award Winner: Rep. Randy Forbes (Virginia) Member of US Congress 2001-2017
In 2005, US Representative Randy Forbes (Virginia) founded, chaired, and later cochaired the Congressional Modeling & Simulation Caucus to advocate for its use in analysis, design, testing, and training.
Forbes initially focused on elevating and expanding the knowledge of M&S used in the military among members of Con gress and their staffs. During his 12 years of Caucus leadership, the representative from Virginia expanded the congres sional body’s focus on M&S – for training and other tasks in the acquisition cycle, and in adjacent high-risk sectors. This congressional body’s positive, enduring impact expanded through the years on Capitol Hill and beyond, benefiting the Pentagon, the US simulation and training industry and other stakeholders.
Finalist: Albert “Skip” Rizzo, Ph.D., Director, Medical Virtual Reality, USC Institute for Creative Technologies
For many years, Psychologist Skip Rizzo (PhD) has conducted research on the design, development and evaluation of virtual reality (VR) systems as tools for clinical assessment, treatment reha bilitation and resilience for military and civilian personnel. Dr. Rizzo uses simu lation to help patients cope with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He and his team at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies developed a Virtual Human Mobile Wellness Application that incor porates a Virtual Human support agent in which a student can ask a human character – a virtual therapist or infor mation specialist – what problems they are experiencing. This form of clinical assessment fills a gap when there aren’t enough real people to handle the role. The program is particularly useful for sol diers returning from war and those pre paring for possible conflict. Rizzo’s team built a Stress Resilience in Virtual Envi ronments (STRIVES) program in which a soldier goes on a virtual mission where something bad happens. The Rizzo-led Institute has been supported by millions of dollars in research funding by the US Army. Without this support, military sim ulation would not be where it is today, according to the Institute, adding that the work would have a major impact on civilian health care as well. mst
The complete summary of award winners, finalists and honorable mentions is posted on the Halldale website www.halldale.com
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Over the last year we have seen an explosion of interest in the metaverse, not just in the tech com munity, but in the wider media. Social media giants such as Facebook have changed their name (to Meta), and business consultants such as McKinsey claim “the metaverse is too big for companies to ignore”. Accenture state that “it will revolutionize nearly all aspects of life and business in the next decade”. Like any grand vision it will have its enthusiasts and detractors but the metaverse is an important topic right now and many of its themes and technologies chime with military simulation and training.
Inevitably the first question asked is what exactly is the metaverse? The term originates from Neal Stephenson’s 1992 science fiction book Snow Crash and is an imaginary “computergenerated universe” with many participants, typically (but not necessarily) accessed by “goggles” providing 3D imagery and sounds. Over the last 30 years the word metaverse has been used principally by technologists as inspiration for the future of computing but now with its broadening appeal (and sometimes repulsion) its meaning is evolving depending on the perspective of the person or organisation. This is not that unusual, as defining related terms such as “digital twins” and “cyber” is still ongoing.
The definition or description of the metaverse appears to be in two schools, one which sees it as a “massively scaled and interoperable network of real-time rendered 3D virtual worlds”, such as defined by the influential metaverse writer and commen tator Matthew Ball in his 2022 book, The Metaverse And How It Will Revolutionize Everything. Others see it as virtual worlds but also with more of an extension into the real world. For exam ple, at Microsoft Ignite November 2021, its annual conference for developers and IT professionals, CEO Satya Nadella said “the metaverse enables us to embed computing into the real world and to embed the real world into computing bringing real pres ence to any digital space”.
As for a “military metaverse”, there have been a number of recent articles attempting to describe it and discuss the opportunities and challenges ahead. In the absence of, say a NATO defini tion, we might suggest that it is the enterprise-wide persistent networking and integration of live, virtual and con structive simulations which is a longstanding vision. Whatever a military metaverse is or is not, and whether cur rent-day metaverse vision(s) will be fully realised, we can nevertheless report on metaverse related trends and enablers.
Militaries such as the British Army and USAF are seeking more immersive train ing environments to improve the feel ing of presence for the trainee(s) and ultimately improved learning efficiency. eXtended Reality (XR) devices can be a powerful way of immersing trainees, par ticularly virtual reality (VR) devices which can completely immerse trainees, at least in terms of their visual experience. This is an area of technology that is advancing very swiftly, and it is challenging to report on let alone make hardware choices. As computing power, sensors, networking, AI and visuals all improve, new headsets are emerging and at the time of writing
Image credit: John F. Williams/ U.S. Navy.
Above Project BlueShark was a mid-2010s experiment in the early metaverse created by the Office of Naval Research and the USC Institute for Creative Technologies.the Meta Quest Pro and Pico 4 Enterprise have been announced, aimed at enter prise and professional users. Both include face- and eye-tracking, with HTC offering these features as extras. Such capabilities are touted to improve user experience and support more realistic avatars but can raise privacy concerns. In the AR space, Magic Leap also recently launched their second-generation device aimed at the professional market. Efforts to bring AR into the military market have hit the head lines through the US Army IVAS capabil ity based on Microsoft HoloLens technol ogy. It was reported that 5,000 units were ordered in September 2022 but there have been negative headlines of poor user experience.
Gaming illustrates that wearing headsets is not always necessary to interact with more 3D and interactive digital worlds. Some companies are focusing on ease and ubiquity of access to the metaverse which for defence can be a key advan tage with its diversity in IT hardware.
Exploiting existing internet JavaScript technologies and skills, web-based Cro quet OS supports 3D apps for any device. Croquet founder and 3D and XR pioneer David A. Smith wrote recently, a “webbased metaverse enables any world to be connected to any other world on the web, no matter who developed it or on which web server it is hosted”. Croquet also provides “portals” that allow for users to easily move between virtual worlds and Smith claims “portals will transform the metaverse in the same way that links transformed the web”.
Matthew Ball is among those metaverse commentators that see it as “persistent”, so in Ball’s words “it never “resets” or “pauses” or “ends”, it just continues indefinitely”. This concept can lead to the impression that we will all be living our lives as avatars 24/7 but even Snow Crash’s protagonist Hiro spends time also in the real world. Perhaps what is more relevant to any military metaverse is the potential for the persistency of data such
as terrain, together with accessibility to a persistent network of live and virtual worlds that the warfighter can exploit 24/7 for training and experimentation.
In his special address at SIGGRAPH 2022, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang stated “the metaverse is the next evolution of the internet… where humans will por tal into a virtual world with XR devices while AIs will portal out to our world as physical robots”. Although Snow Crash had robots in both the metaverse and the real world, Huang’s claim seems to extend Stephenson’s original vision with today’s metaverse controlling real-world robots. Nevertheless, this real world and metaverse interaction should have util ity for the military. Already researchers are training robots in simulation ahead of real-world situations never encountered before. For the training of humans, a proliferation of real-world biometric sen sors connected to the metaverse should enhance the training experience and associated analytics.
In a recent blog post, information and communications technology giant Fujitsu foresees the convergence of digital twins and the metaverse with humans operating machinery remotely and making consequence-free errors while experimenting with new designs and settings. “Anyone can realize their potential in a virtual space, for example, by using remote robotics to see the phys ical world or by using technology to pur sue advanced education”, Fujitsu claim. Similarly in a military metaverse, military personnel might explore new concepts collaboratively with designers and ana lysts and remote operate equipment, including maybe one day, warships.
It is not only physical entities that will have digital twins. A key feature of the metaverse will be avatars which are graphical representation of a user, some times actual, sometimes fictional. As the metaverse and associated standards develop these avatars will move from one virtual world to the next together with its assets such as clothing. In a military context, some foresee avatars or digital twins of personnel being transferable from one simulation to the next providing a digital record of performance that can be exploited in training and analytics.
Improved AI and machine learning are key capabilities of the metaverse, and we are seeing significant advancements. As examples, Meta researchers are using ML to predict the movement of a human’s whole avatar based only on the movement and position of the XR HMD. Companies such as VRAI, Varjo and MVRsimulation (formerly MetaVR) are also working to exploit data generated by XR technologies to improve military training evaluation. Training evalua tion will always have a degree of human input, but the ability to automatically capture and analyse a whole range of data will likely only become more pow erful on the back of wider metaverserelated AI advancements.
Although not highly visible, networking will be a key enabler of the metaverse and its core features of bandwidth,
latency and reliability. MS&T recently wrote about Cloud developments and as networking improves the ability to place the computing power wherever it is best placed will be enhanced. This might be minimising XR HMD process ing by conducting it in the Cloud over low-latency 5G, or streaming up-to-date data such as terrain and weather from the Cloud through to virtual worlds and games. Defence can similarly benefit from enhanced networking for its simu lation systems, but this will only happen if emphasis is placed on advancing its network capabilities and solving security issues.
The current thinking of influential metaverse protagonists is that standards will be required to permit avatars and digital assets to move between virtual worlds. As illustration, Mark Zuckerberg said in an interview, “you have your avatar and your digital goods, and you want to be able to teleport anywhere… you don’t want to just be stuck within one company’s stuff”. Such thinking has inspired the launch of the Metaverse Standards Forum in June 2022 which by August had over 1,500 members large and small. It plans to coordinate and fos
ter standards leaving it to existing organ isations to develop standards. With such effort being put into standards, defence will have to at least monitor such devel opments and exploit as necessary for its simulation systems.
Inevitably, with such bold visions there are many hurdles to be overcome before the full potential of the metaverse can be realised, if ever, and no doubt new ones will emerge over time. One example is culture change. The Covid pandemic made video calling a mainstream activ ity; the technology was there before but the pandemic forced culture change. Whether a similar scale event is neces sary to force us more into 3D worlds only time will tell. However, it is worth consid ering metaverse-like experiences such as Minecraft and Roblox are already main stream activities for young people.
Another area of concern in many quarters is data privacy. XR technolo gies for example can generate consider able volumes and diversity of data that researchers have shown can be exploited directly or inferred, providing key per sonal data attributes such as gender, body dimensions and fitness. Of course, in a military context this could be valu able for training but there appears to be a long journey ahead in terms of the people understanding what data they are giving away in the metaverse.
MS&T endeavoured in 2020 to bring the metaverse to the attention of readers in the article Has the Military Been Build ing the Metaverse? Our article suggested that the military had already been devel oping an early form of the metaverse, or “proto-metaverse”.
What we did not foresee was the explosion of interest and investment in this topic since and there is now an almost overwhelming amount of metaverse news. But, like in 2020, the metaverse and a future military metaverse appears highly relevant to simulation and training with many opportunities, and some chal lenges ahead. The real world is threedimensional, and increasingly the digital world will be too. mst
With the Covid pandemic mostly in the “rear view mirror”, other high- and low-level economic, political and related developments continue to chal lenge the S&T industry. Of little surprise, NTSA president Jim Robb noted his concerns at the macro level are led by an aware ness and the ability of the US to counter what is clearly a “total war approach” by Russia and China to replace the US as the global leader. The association leader noted his three top con cerns at the lower, “operational” level are: the effects of inflation on government spending power, the lack of continuity in supply chain as magnified by new policies emphasizing returning criti cal supply chains back to America, and the community’s ability to develop and field relevant capabilities in a timely manner.
Focusing on what training readiness capabilities he expects I/ITSEC presenters and exhibitors to offer to meet these chal lenges, Robb responded that the importance of training to all fighting forces has been demonstrated by the superiority of a much smaller Ukraine armed force against a much larger Rus sian adversary. “Ukraine is better trained, better connected and is using western armaments, many of which have been developed and fielded in the last decade,” he pointed out, and added “kami kaze drones are an example.”
Noting we are also seeing the effects of precision and a great battlefield awareness of the enemy’s position due to widespread availability of shared intelligence and commercial satellite imagery, Robb further noted, “You see the Ukrainians taking west ern equipment and employing them in very short times, many times training as they fight.” Of significance, the NTSA leader emphasized this year’s I/ITSEC will highlight the evolving strate gies of warfare and the unique training capabilities that allow not only quick adaptation of new technologies but the use of virtual
environments that allow soldiers to do repetitive training utilizing XR technolo gies. “We also see the power of nextgeneration communications, imagery, confidence-building activities and a will to die for your country. I/ITSEC will also showcase the ‘Metaverse,’ which is the confluence of Internet 3.0, digital twins, and 5G speed.”
The association leader is clearly in-tune to the US DoD enterprise continuing to compress the acquisition timeline – in order to receive its systems, equipment and other content faster. Indeed, he also revealed the speed of assimilation of new technologies inside government is one of his greatest challenges as presi dent of NTSA. “Over my tenure, we have championed Live, Virtual and Construc tive solutions, Big Data and Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, XR technologies, and the need to transform training and education.”
To further address this need, Retired RADM Robb created the “Next Big Thing” committee as a new structure within the I/ITSEC framework to bring together the best minds to discuss what technologies we need to focus on and highlight at the show. “Last year we
Above Learn how to do it yourself. Epic Games will demonstrate the workflow for creating synthetic environments in Unreal Engine or importing them. Image credit: Epic Games.
drilled down on XR technologies and began a community-wide discussion of the Metaverse. We had an entirely sepa rate track within the show dedicated to these dynamic capabilities and educa tion and debate on their use in military training. This year we will have invited very high-level military and civilian lead ers to help us understand the military metaverse.”
The NTSA president also emphasized conference attendees will see the latest in VR/AR technologies, state-of-the-art simulations, many of which are integrat ing AI into their offerings, a second year of the cyber pavilion and much emphasis on digital twins and digital transformation. “Our ‘I/ITSEC-verse’ demo will show the power of a 3D internet, 5G wireless and powerful enabling software. We have a wide variety of medical simulation appli cations being demonstrated. The confer ence is extremely rich in serious games and wargaming, synthetic training envi ronments, and training for space warfight ing, something new to the conference.”
“I/ITSEC 2022 is on track to break records,” Robb declared. While NTSA sold out the show floor by September, “Registration is also ahead of last year by 50 percent and is on track for us to host over 17,000 this year in Orlando.” As for the list of high-ranking and senior indus try leaders expected at this event, NTSA reported it has “43 all-star special events that include the head of the Space Force, the Air Force Vice Chief and senior lead ers from Office of the Secretary of Defense, Department of Homeland Security and NATO. “It has become clear that the training and simulation community has a critical mission and is capable of doing agile development and acquisition, mak ing I/ITSEC a place where technology, talent and tenacity come together, push our capabilities and skills to the next level and ‘accelerate change’,” he concluded.
Here's a sampling of what’s in store on the I/ITSEC exhibition floor.
Immersive Display Solutions, Inc (IDSI) (booths #1087/#1768) will show seven different display technologies,
“the most we have ever presented at an I/ITSEC,” George Forbes Jr., the com pany’s CEO noted. The executive contin ued, “Our exhibit will include solid-state (4K) projectors with both front- and rearprojected displays, including a hard-shell dome, a rear-projected faceted acrylic flat screen, a reverse-pressure fabric transportable dome, a direct-view LED display, an augmented-reality headmounted display (HMD) coupled with a green-screen display, as well as a new ‘synthetic monocular depth display.’”
In addition, the company is sup porting Bohemia Interactive with IDSI’s trailer-based Mobile/Joint Fires Trainer system. The trailer is a self-contained mobile classroom inclusive of an IDSI VisionStation3 dome visual display. Additionally, IDSI’s ecosystem is expand ing with more than 15 industry leaders on its partnering roster. On the hard ware side, IDSI’s longstanding projector partners (Barco, Canon, Digital Projec tion, and Norxe) will all be represented.
On the software side, IDSI will exhibit IG partners Aechelon, Battlespace Simula tion Inc. (BSI), Bohemia Interactive, CATI and Wartsila.
As a lead-in to Red 6’s focus at the conference (booth #1213), CEO Daniel Robinson asserted that with even more dramatic drops to pilot production capac ity, now 1,650 pilots short, “the pilot train ing paradigm has failed to keep pace with innovative learning technologies result ing in an insufficient number of experi enced pilots in fleet squadrons.” Accord ingly, the Red 6 Platform, ATARS (Airborne Tactical Augmented Reality System) + CARBON (Common Augmented Real ity Battlespace Operational Network) + Augmented Reality Command and Ana lytic Data Environment (ARCADE) intro duces a dedicated synthetic adversary training resource. Robinson explained, “This will provide better training out comes with fewer instructor pilots, fewer aircraft, resulting in decreased mainte nance needs and significant operational expenses. We can now rapidly increase the production output of new combat aviators, while simultaneously achieving compelling financial and environmental offsets across the DoD.”
The company will also be showcas ing the 4.0 version of the ATARS AR-
enabled helmet as well as the latest integrations and partnerships. The CEO told MS&T that ATARS enables the most realistic training during all stages of a pilot’s career, from initial flight, through to advanced tactical training of large groups of air combat forces. “The Red 6 AR headset EVE 4.0 will deliver the widest field-of-view lens in the industry. With 160 degrees diagonal FOV it’s 110 degrees wider than the HoloLens 2 and 95 degrees wider than the Magic Leap 2.”
Epic Games/Unreal Engine’s event page “will be evolving every week towards the event as we release user spotlights showing details about key simulation players using Unreal Engine at the core of their solutions,” Sébastien Lozé told MS&T. Lozé is UE Business Director, Simulation. Epic Games will be exhibiting at booth #1815.
“Our team will illustrate how Unreal Engine is transforming the simulation industry through innovative real-time solutions by presenting several live dem onstrations of simulation solutions,” said Lozé. “Simulation has always faced chal lenges with scalability and interoperabil ity. We’ll be showing a variety of interac tive solutions, including co-simulation with high-fidelity, multibody dynamics and spatial and cloud distribution. In addition, non-visible spectrum solutions for IR and NVG will be showcased for the first time at I/ITSEC.”
“The Antoinette Project, which we will demonstrate in our booth, is a com prehensive set of resources that supports the creation of the next generation of flight simulators,” he added.
Saab. “At Saab, we believe that the most realistic training, coupled with immediate feedback and detailed evalu ation, is the best way to prepare for any mission. That’s why we put the individual at the centre of our training operations, and build the systems around them,” stated Magnus Palmér, Senior Communi cations Manager.
Experience is key, he explained. “By exposing trainees to realistic and var ied training situations, you are building that experience, allowing them to use it to make the right decisions at the right time.”
At I/ITSEC 2022 (booth #1238), Saab will be showcasing a wide range of live,
virtual and blended solutions to support hi-fidelity training. Dem onstrations will include developments in Live Training solutions including EXCON, Vehicle Systems, Soldier Systems, Anti-tank weapon simulators, Indirect Fire solutions as well as Operators/ Controller Toolbox in addition to UAV Concept Simulator. The products on display will also include the latest generation Virtual Ground Combat Indoor Trainer.
Eduworks’ COO, Dr. Benjamin Bell, told MS&T they will be showcasing (booth #2434) its advanced capabilities for captur ing human performance data and calculating impact on readi ness. The Talent Cascade platform is built on their open source Competency and Skills System (CaSS), a proven framework for enhancing training through data that is being validated in pro grams for the US Army, US Navy, US Air Force, National Science Foundation, and in the airline industry.
Eduworks is also announcing at I/ITSEC a new program in partnership with AFRL and sponsored by AFWERX, to demon strate their CaSS working with metrics derived in a Pilot Training Transformation environment. This project, called CHECK-SIX, builds on previous work under the OMEGA project.
MVRsimulation (booth #1187) will be demonstrating its Deployable Joint Fires Trainer (DJFT) and Part Task Mission Trainer (PTMT) simulators. Integrated with the Varjo XR-3 mixed-reality headset, MVRsimulation’s new-generation DJFT supports datalink messaging to execute Link 16 and VMF Digi tally Aided Close Air Support (DACAS) in accordance with cur rent joint tactics, techniques, and procedures. This mixed-reality system is designed to provide a quick-deploy capability for Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTACs) and Forward Observers (FOs) to train alongside fixed-wing, rotary-wing and RPAS air crew within a fully immersive, joint training environment. The DJFT has been integrated with battlefield targeting and commu nication hardware and software, including the Android Tactical
Awareness Kit (ATAK) and its equivalent for the windows oper ating system, WinTAK.
At I/ITSEC, visitors to the MVRsimulation booth will be able to experience mixed-reality DJFT and PTMT training scenarios within a virtual, geospecific world created by MVRsimulation’s VRSG, with 3D models and culture.
Norxe (booth #2314) is continuing developing projectors dedicated for the S&T market, pioneering the use of HLD in simu lation with their P1 products, and now developing and innovating further with NXL illumination and Native 4K resolution.
Espen A. Olsen, Co-Founder and Vice President Global Sales, told MS&T, “We launched the P50 earlier this year, and the Native 4K resolution combined with high frame rate (240HZ at full reso lution) has already proven itself as a very appealing product for a variety of simulation applications. Norxe has, together with part ners AMST, managed to deploy P50 High-G in Motion Systems rated up to 15G Motion.”
At I/ITSEC, Norxe will focus on their Native 4K projectors. The P50 Native 4K will be displayed together with the P50 n-shifted 6K version. P50 has the Full Native 4K DMD with a pixel count of 4096x2176 and 4K resolution up to a stunning 240Hz.
“We will also show the bigger brother: P60,” said Olsen. Native 4K – 5000 RGB Ansi Lumen.
The new Norxe Unify electronics platform is designed to support both high-resolution and high-speed image process ing simultaneously. It has the power to process 4K, 6K and 8K content and comes with a powerful embedded warp and blend engine.
CAE USA does not plan any major product launches this year, but is featuring a demonstration of their SCARS (Simulator Common Architecture Requirements and Standards), for which they lead the development for the USAF. SCARS is designed to provide the Air Force an Enterprise Solution that implements use of a common, cyber-resilient infrastructure specifically designed to support the Joint Synthetic Environment and Dis tributed Mission Operations training across all Air Force major weapons systems.
Brightline Interactive (booth #1332) will demonstrate the Multi-Verse Training Environment (MVTE), an end-to-end immersive solution that leverages innovative technologies to collapse space and time, and deliver context and content simul taneously thus providing for faster and more effective training.
Andy Kasinski of Brightline’s Strategic Immersive Solu tions, said the MVTE technologies allow non-technical instruc tors, users, and decision makers to have full control and cre ate custom training scenarios for multiplayer simulations and to deploy those scenarios to multiple users connected to a 5G AT&T network.
In the demo simulation, two of the users will be operating ground-based vehicles via the NOVA simulators and one other user will leverage mixed reality (Varjo XR-3) to interact with the immersive environment with instructor-led live controls (e.g., this user can evaluate the simulation from multiple perspectives in full immersive and can trigger distractions in the environment). A fourth individual will showcase the ability to author scenarios on a laptop and display some of the interface functions from the live editor control build through NVIDIA’s Omniverse. mst
Above
Although the trees along Queen’s Avenue have grown somewhat in the intervening half-century and the hallowed portals remain outwardly pretty much the same, almost everything else has changed. MS&T’s Martin ‘Dim’ Jones revisited the scene of some of the earliest of his many crimes.
On a grey March day in 1966, one callow youth among many entered the Royal Air Force College at Cranwell, Lincolnshire, to start a 2½-year course which would culminate in graduation as a Pilot Officer wearing the coveted RAF Pilot’s brevet. Fifty-six years ago, Cranwell was all about Officer Training, which included basic professional training in one of a number of aircrew and ground branch specialisations. With six entries of about 90 cadets, plus a Flying Training School (FTS) and a technical college teaching to degree standard, pro viding long-service commissioned officers for an Air Force of over 90,000 personnel, there was little real estate available for anything else. Today, the full-time trained strength of the RAF is around 30,000 and, although Initial Officer Training (IOT) remains Cranwell’s centrepiece, the estate is also home to Nos 3 and 6 FTSs, Headquarters Air Cadets, two Service Academies, the Air & Space Warfare School, Headquarters Central Flying School, East Midlands University Air Squadron, the Officer and Aircrew Selec tion Centre (OASC) and the High-G Training and Test Facility.
The Commandant of the RAF College is a 1-Star officer, answering to the Air Officer Commanding No 22 Group (AOC 22 Gp). The Commandant is responsible for:
• The RAF Officer Training Academy (RAFOTA);
• The RAF Cranwell unit;
• 6 FTS, which has responsibility for University Air Squadrons (UAS) and Air Experience Flights (AEF);
•
The Tedder Academy of Leadership;
•
The Robson Academy of Resilience;
• and RAF Halton, a separate Station which is the home of the Recruit Train ing Squadron and Aviator Command Squadron.
This article focuses on IOT, which is delivered by RAFOTA. The current syllabus is the product of Programme Socrates which, inter alia, sought to streamline training and eliminate dupli cation, and Project Mercury, which ena bled Socrates by modularising training, resulting in the Modular IOT Course (MIOTC), a four-module course, recently reduced from the former 30 weeks to 24. Each cadet entry is allocated to a RAFOTA squadron; there is currently no break in training (although from this November, there will be a one-week break between modules), and four courses run concurrently, with the Spe cialist Officers Initial Training (SOIT), Reserve Officers Initial Training (ROIT) and Commissioned Warrant Officers Course (CWOC) running intermittently alongside.
The mission of the RAF College is: “To Inspire, Attract, Train and Develop
Above An IOT Course and a Recruit Intake from RAF Halton rehearse for a joint Graduation Parade. Image credit: UK MOD Crown Copyright. Photo Paul Saxby.the Next Generation Royal Air Force”. Within the RAF College’s bailiwick, inspiration and attraction are the func tions of the Youth and Science, Tech nology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) Team, the Air and Defence Colleges, and AEFs and UASs; between attraction and training, one could insert ‘selection’ which, in the case of officers and aircrew, is the province of the OASC. I will cover these in more depth separately.
MIOTC is the training vehicle for direct entry officers; as regards short courses, the CWOC and ROIT are selfexplanatory, and the Specialist Officers Initial Training Course is for professions such as medical, dental and chaplaincy. Personnel commissioning from RAF ranks below Warrant Officer, transfers from Army and Royal Marines, and direct entrants who have completed some Phase 1 training in UASs will join MIOT at the start of Module 2. For the rest, it starts on a Sunday – Day 0. Day 0 activity includes a fitness test, a recurring theme through the course; fit ness will already have been tested during
the application, selection and familiarisa tion processes, and the requirements will be well understood. There is some form of PE every day, principally aimed at building resilience; maintaining fitness levels is a key aspect of the course and individuals will be expected to undertake their own fitness training. Cadets are ini tially accommodated in 2-person rooms (coincidentally in the same barrack block in which I was incarcerated during my second 6-month term), before moving to College Hall at the start of Module 3.
Module 1 is the Military Induction Module, closely mirroring the Basic Recruit Training conducted at RAF Hal ton, and imbuing all the skills and knowl edge necessary to induct a civilian into military service, including: General Ser vice Knowledge (GSK), foot drill, military discipline, weapon training and force protection, skill-at-arms, basic fieldcraft, First Aid and use of Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) equip ment, physical training and education and, perhaps most significantly, military ethos and core values.
Domestic life in Module 1 is very much driven by the NCO instructors. The cadets are a mix of those coming direct from school, graduates of UASs, and entrants from other civilian occupations, and include international personnel. Each student is issued with a personal laptop, through which they will be able to access training material in the Virtual Learning Environment. Practical and theory tests are conducted at every stage, and the module culminates in a 3-day exercise, in which cadets are both taught and assessed. Successful com pletion of Module 1 is a milestone since, should remedial training be required later on (for other than disciplinary reasons), it will never start earlier than the beginning of Module 2.
At this point, Module 1 graduates are joined by other ex-UAS, interservice transfers and serving personnel from the RAF. Term 2 is the first part of Development training, which focuses on Command, Leadership and Management (CLM). Leadership training is conducted under the auspices of the Tedder
Academy of Leadership which, inter alia, is the author of RAF Air Publication (AP) 1 – Core Values and Ethos – and AP 7001, the Leadership Manual. This defines its subject as: ‘the projection of character, principles and behaviours that inspire people to succeed’, and divides it into four elements: leading oneself; leading a team; leading change; and leading an organisation.
Module 2 concentrates on ‘knowing and leading yourself in order to lead others’. This aim is sup ported in part by Adventurous Training (AT) which, in the RAF, is the province of the Robson Academy of Resilience, of which more elsewhere; Term 2 includes a week-long visit to the Robson Centre at Crickhowell in Wales’s Brecon Beacons. AT has long been used to develop lead ership and teamwork, to promote physi cal fitness, as a break from normal duties, and for ‘decompression’ after particularly stressful activities such as operational deployments.
Module 2 also includes studies in Air and Space Power, delivered initially by instructors from the College’s academic partner, Portsmouth Military Education Team (PMET). Theory lessons are inter spersed with live exercises: Practical Leadership Training 1, and Exercises Dynamic Edge and Eagle’s Edge, in the last of which cadets live in an austere environment and practise leading (and being a part of) small teams in a deployed military scenario. Students are coached and mentored by the staff, rather than taught, and exercise debriefs are facili tated by the staff, but conducted by the students.
Not everyone will pass every phase at the first attempt; indeed, whereas the overall pass rate is 97%, the first-time rate is only 77%. Those who require remedial training, or who – through injury, per sonal circumstance or other unforeseen event – cannot progress through the course with their peers will be looked after by the Cadet Support Flight (CSF). In the case of injury, a cadet will receive no additional formal training and, when fit, will rejoin a subsequent course at the same point in the syllabus at which they left it. Those who fail a module will receive a three-week refinement pack age to address the areas of underper
formance; then, following a Trainee Review Panel (TRP), they will return to the course at an appropriate point. The normal limita tion on continued progress is two failures on any element of the summative phase, exceptionally three, following which a cadet will either return to the military occupation whence they came or, in the case of direct entrants, leave the Service and return to civilian life.
Module 3 – ‘Explore Leadership – Practise and Develop’ – focuses on Command and Management as well as leadership of small teams. The first half concentrates on Com mand and Control (C2), explores the functions of command, advanced military planning and effective communication, and culminates in a four-day locally deployed exercise (Commander’s Edge), in which the cadets will learn to apply C2 theory in a prac tical scenario. There follows a series of sub-modules in three dis ciplines: Air C2 in the Air and Space Environment, taught by the RAF’s Air & Space Warfare School; Line Management Respon sibilities, which include staff appraisals, discipline, military law, interview techniques, service writing and verbal skills; and Care and Welfare, delivered by the Padres, which covers stress man agement, conflict management and mental health and wellbe ing. In the staff appraisal segment, cadets will write as the First Reporting Officer for an Officer’s Joint Appraisal Report (OJAR), with themselves as the subject, and then draft a Second Report ing Officer’s narrative on one of their peers. At the end of Module 3, a TRP will judge each cadet’s performance over the period.
Module 4 is subdivided into a Consolidation phase and a Transition and Graduation phase. Weeks one to three see train ees participate in an office management exercise (Exercise First Week), an Air C2-based exercise in a deployed scenario (Exer cise Astra Edge), and Exercise Highland Edge, a week-long AT detachment to the Robson Resilience Centre at Grantown-onSpey in Scotland, which will include a two and a half-day leader ship exercise. In a recent change of practice, Highland Edge is assessed as well as instructed by the Grantown staff, who act in this regard as RAFOTA agents.
Above MS&T Europe Editor Dim Jones (bottom left in group photo) during his days at Cranwell. Image credits: Illustrated London News, Capt. Martin Jones.
Week 4 is devoted to an academic assessment in Air and Space Power and GSK, comprising a Viva presentation and the submission of a Defence Writing point brief. The Viva tests presentational and critical analysis skills, and is subdi vided into two parts: a timed presenta tion on the subject of the brief, which is assessed on delivery and critical analysis; and a Q&A session with the Portsmouth team, which tests deeper understanding of the topic. To graduate, cadets must pass all phases, but the results of each phase will not be revealed until all are complete; candidates need only repeat those assessments which they failed.
During Week 5, the staff will make their final assessments: those who are judged to have met every standard will celebrate on ‘Champagne Tuesday’ and prepare for graduation the following week. Those who are deemed to require further training will be debriefed on their performance, formulate an individual development plan to address areas of concern, and undertake a three-week refinement course, concentrating on those areas requiring improvement.
Key to the success and effective ness of MIOT is the staff, both instruc tional and support. A RAFOTA instructor is rightly seen as a role model for aspir ing officers, and a posting to Cranwell as a positive career move. Staff are carefully selected from those whose suitability has been annotated on their OJAR or SJAR; they are then trained to perform their duties on the Modular Staff Training (MST) course, with particular reference to the enhanced care of trainees.
Phase 1 instructors are necessar ily heavily biased towards the ground branches, principally because the limited numbers of aircrew instructors available are needed for Phase 2 training. I was particularly struck by two aspects of staff composition: firstly, the significant num ber of women, including many in key and very senior positions; and, secondly, the use of reservists. Many staff members are either full-time or part-time reservists, and this has benefits and drawbacks for both Service and individual. Reservists cost the defence budget less than regu lars, but they are less widely employable or deployable, and their terms of ser vice allow them to leave at short notice.
The mission of the Officer & Aircrew Selection Centre (OASC) is “To be the UK centre of excellence for the selection of the best potential officers, non-commissioned aircrew and controllers for RAF service”.
Prior to the pandemic, the RAF could expect around 8000 applications a year, of which around 3000 would enter Aptitude Testing for specialisations which require it (essentially anything to do with flying or controlling). The annual intake was about 600 officers, including 90 pilots – of which around 30% would already be serving – and 100 NCO aircrew.
Specific factors, including those related to the pandemic, have generated some temporary reductions, but the RAF hopes that intake numbers should return to historic norms in the near future. There has also been a reduction in the maximum ages for com mencing aircrew training, in the case of pilots from below 27 to below 24, to allow a full career path in view of ensuring they have the reach in years to achieve the highest ranks, following several years of flying training, development as a front-line aviator and then ascension through the ranks, via various command and staff roles.
OASC in 2022, although adhering to a similar general format to the one which I underwent at RAF Biggin Hill and Cranwell in 1963, has changed in many ways. Gone is the 1* Commandant, supported by a couple of Group Captains and a bevy of Wing Command ers and Squadron Leaders; today’s organization is run by a Wing Commander, supported by Squadron Leaders and Flight Lieutenants, using assessment techniques designed by dedicated occupational psychologists.
Applicants will probably have been attracted by marketing through various media, and will complete an online application. An online check of eligibility will be conducted by the RAF Virtual Armed Forces Career Office, and a physical check, combined with a presenta tion and the opportunity for questions, at a local Armed Forces Career Office.
Applicants are then invited to undergo Computer-Based Aptitude Testing, if required for the desired branch, which results in an assessment of suitability for various roles. The RAF’s aptitude testing is constantly evolving, is used by the Army and the RN, and has been adopted by other forces worldwide. It has been shown to significantly reduce failure rate in training, thereby increasing cost-effectiveness – flying training is an expensive business.
There is a different battery of tests for each branch: Pilot; RPAS pilot; Weapons Systems Officer (WSO); Air Ops Control, Intel; and Weapons Systems Operator (WSOp). About 25% qualify for pilot, and around 50% pass something. The tests take a working day, are valid for three years, and can be retaken after 12 months; the maximum improvement noted is about 10%.
Based on these results, candidates then undertake a filter interview, currently a combi nation of face-to-face and virtual, followed by a general medical examination and a fitness test, which can be administered to RAF standards by GPs and fitness centres contracted to the MoD.
The interview comprises: personal qualities and activities; motivation towards the RAF; military and current affairs awareness; and a mandatory warfare question, requiring a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response.
Those who meet the criteria are then invited to OASC to undertake a face-to-face interview and exercise phase, followed by a specialist medical. The interview further explores personal qualities, attitudes, motivation and awareness. The exercise phase includes a dis cussion period, a planning exercise, and tasks which are performed in both leaderless and command situations. These are designed to test confidence and resilience, oral communica tions, influence on others, problem-solving, and teamwork. The specialist medical comprises an anthropometric assessment, audiometry, optometry, blood test and ECG, a physical examination and a medical board interview. Finally, a decision will be made and, if appropri ate, an offer of service will be extended. – Dim Jones.
Conversely, they can join the reserves in ranks lower than those held on their retirement from regular service, and their experience and skill sets may be well in excess of those one might expect of a regular officer in the same rank. They are also employable in roles which suit those skill sets and are not encumbered by career path considerations. Lastly, reserve service confers a degree of domestic stability.
In sum, MIOT has been developed to produce the most effective junior RAF officers in the most cost- and time-effi cient manner. It is invidious to compare
today’s product with the graduates of 1968, even if my memory could stretch back that far, but the aim remains the same: to become the best junior officer you can be. The course is certainly far more focused on the required skills and attributes than it was then, and there is no time for the gradual process of osmo sis on which we relied.
One of the drawbacks of early service for aircrew officers – and particularly fast-jet aircrew – is that they are less likely than their ground branch counterparts to be in command of any one; but for an accident of fate which
saw me spend most of a year as a pla toon commander in a Scottish infantry battalion, such responsibility would have been 20 years and four promotions down the road. Thanks to the MIOT course, and periodic follow-on staff training which plucks them out of the cockpit and back into the real world, today’s graduates are much better equipped to serve both their seniors and their subordinates.
It was both instructive and pleasur able to revisit the RAF College which is now much more diverse in its roles, but brings back happy memories and remains, to my mind, the heart of the RAF. mst
No 6 Flying Training School, with the headquarters based at RAF Cranwell, comprises the University Air Squadrons (UAS), Air Experi ence Flights (AEF), the Youth and STEM Team, and the Tutor Display Team. The UASs were formed in 1925 ‘to encourage an interest in aviation, promote and maintain a liaison with Universities and assist those who wish to take up aeronautics in either RAF or a civilian capacity’. They were disbanded in 1939, until the experience of the Battle of Britain prompted their significantly enhanced reformation in 1941, and by 1943 the UASs had contributed 2500 aircrew to the RAF Volunteer Reserve (RAFVR).
The modern UAS mission is to: ‘Attract talent to Regular and Reserve RAF Service and educate selected undergraduates on the role of Air and Space Power in delivering the Nation’s defence’, and its specific task to provide 30% of the Graduate IOT Cadre. The Air Experience Flights aim to provide air experience to as many as possible of the 38,000 or so Air Training Corps and Combined Cadet Force cadets in the UK.
6 FTS is responsible for 15 UASs, with 13 embedded AEFs in 18 separate sites (13 flying locations) around the UK, mainly but not exclusively on RAF Main Operating Bases (MOBs), and includes 115 Squadron (instructor training) and 16 Squadron (standards). These units comprise some 200 military and civil service staff, 245 contrac tor support personnel, 270 volunteer pilots and 1000 UAS students, and 91 Grob 115 Tutor aircraft. Most of the UASs are aligned with several universities (about 110 in total) on a regional basis. The avail ability of UAS membership is promulgated through marketing, social media and ‘Freshers’ Fairs’.
Flying is a fundamental part of the UAS syllabus, and aims to give students an enduring understanding of the air environment and its challenges. It is available to all UAS students, whether or not they are interested in a career as a pilot, or in joining the RAF. Each student is allocated eight hours flying per year, and those who demonstrate fly ing ability and enthusiasm can achieve more, academic commitments permitting. ‘First Solo’ is a key milestone, and the Preliminary Flying Badge can be attained after about 30 hours.
Flying and ground instruction is delivered by the UAS staff, who are regulars or full-time reservists, and a specialist NCO Ground Training Instructor will enable and instruct adventurous training.
Recent developments under Project Mercury now empower the UASs to deliver formally recognisable RAF training through the Acceler ated Training Pathway. The ground syllabus is designed to mirror that of the Military Induction Module of Initial Officer Training and that of the Basic Recruit Training Course, such that those completing three years on a UAS will be able to enter MIOT at the beginning of Module 2. Similarly, the flying syllabus mirrors the Elementary Flying Training (EFT) syllabus which is Phase 2 training for pilots, and successful graduates of this syllabus are now able to progress directly to more advanced fast-jet training on the T-6 Texan; in the future, it is hoped that there will also be direct pathways to Multi-Engine training on the Phenom and Rotary Wing on the Airbus Juno.
The syllabi are enhanced by Air Power Development Training, Air Power Study Exercises, sport and expeditions in the UK and over seas. All courses are Defence Systems Approach to Training (DSAT) and OFSTED compliant.
At any point in their university course, a student may apply to join the RAF through the normal OASC process, and will be able to access aptitude testing in advance and receive coaching in interview skills. Top-grade successful candidates may be offered a bursary whereby, while in the UAS, they will be attested into the Volunteer Reserve and be paid a special rate for up to 35 days per year. In FY 18/19, approximately 36% of the IOT intake came from the UASs and, in FY20/21, 128 UAS students were delivered into various branches of the RAF. The UAS system remains, therefore, a key element in attracting young people of high quality to join the RAF, and also imbuing those destined for high achievement in other careers with an appreciation of the Service and the air environment. - Dim Jones.
Cloud and streaming technologies are already being used in support of S&T and, although a journey with hurdles, there seems to be a clear direction of travel towards a Cloud approach. MS&T’s Special Correspondent Andy Fawkes reports.
The benefits of public Clouds are well understood and are helping to drive the digital trans formation of many organisations, processes and how we access media and data, for work and for play. These can include levering off economies of scale and the latest computing technology, scalability, and faster security updates.
However, moving to the Cloud is a journey and with the many legacy systems that defence owns and runs it cannot be carried out overnight. A first step is virtualising applications. CAE’s Chief Engineer of Infrastructure Technologies, Tansel Kendir, told MS&T, “Traditionally, almost every application that the simulator ran required its own computer with a room full of computers” and now with virtualisation “today you walk into that same room, you have a single cabinet.”
To reap the full benefits of Cloud technology, however, requires the move into containers and Kubernetes (see ‘A Brief Guide to the Cloud’ - page 29). Kendir explained: “If you contain erise applications and go to the Kubernetes you can provide high availability and you can change the resources based on the num ber of people using it. There are lots of advantages, and when you standardise these things, you can even use the same application for multiple simulators.”
The Cloud can provide a common computational platform with lower upfront and sustainment costs and sup port highly scalable computing. Rob Solly, Director of Research Partnerships at Improbable Defence, told MS&T, “Simulations can be extremely compu tationally intensive, particularly largescale distributed simulations enabled by technologies such as Improbable's Skyral platform, and the elastic scale and high-bandwidth networking pro vided by Cloud providers enables these use cases whilst reducing total cost of ownership.” Solly also cited other ben efits including “development velocity, security and reliability.”
Hadean is a distributed comput ing company whose ‘North Star’ is to develop technologies for customers “to build applications on the Cloud for the Cloud”, according to its VP Sales
Image credit: Marine Corps Systems Command.(UK), Michael Gunadi. Hadean has been working with a broad range of partners including Microsoft and BAE Systems with applications from gaming to simu lation. Gunadi told MS&T that the Cloud “allows us to take the burden off devices and physical simulators and it provides the warfighter with the flexibility to train anywhere on any device and enables a higher-fidelity experience than a single simulator can accommodate in isolation.” Perhaps more fundamentally, Gunadi sees the Cloud and emerging technologies as supporting the digital world or cyber layer that “isn't something that's constrained by kinetic elements; it lives across all (mili tary) domains.” So, for training, the Cloud can “layer in complex digital elements that interact with the kinetic,” Gunadi explained.
Stratus,
CAE’s Kendir was keen to emphasise that for simulation and training there are differ ent types of Cloud to consider. “Commonly, when the term Cloud services/computing is used, everyone thinks of commercial Cloud services provided by Azure, Google, Amazon, etc. – but using Cloud services/ computing has a larger meaning.” While these services already have defence use cases, they as yet do not satisfy all defence requirements. One example cited by Kendir is the need for very low latency required by high-fidelity simulation that leads to the “usage of Cloud technology in the form of on-premises equipment.” Also for defence is the security issue, and “the current preferred choice is to use cybersecure, on-premises Cloud solutions,” Kendir told us. For companies like CAE and their customers, they are exploiting public Clouds but also deploying both local and centralised Cloud technology on private networks.
Bohemia Interactive Simulations (BISim) Chief Commercial Officer, Pete Morrison, similarly told MS&T that Cloud terminology can confuse the discussion. “There can be this misunderstanding that when you say Cloud, people think of Google, but I could simply say ‘Server Rack’,” Morrison said, “so my recommen dation to smaller military organisations is to start with a server rack and start using Cloud principles.”
CAE/USAF SCARS – Under the USAF Simulators Common Architecture Requirements and Standards (SCARS) program, CAE USA are leading an industry team to integrate and stand ardise USAF aircraft training simulators and support distrib uted, networked, and cyber-secure mission training. SCARS will provide common standards for simulator design and operation that includes strict cyber-security criteria to enable the USAF to link simulators together, perform remote software updates, and enrich the training environment. With approximately 2,400 simu lators across over 300 locations, the USAF SCARS programme is supporting the digital transformation of the USAF training footprint by leveraging all of the advantages Cloud computing technologies offer. This will involve both local Clouds and a cen tralised Cloud, all on the private USAF networks.
Kendir explained: “SCARS provides local Clouds to run the simulators locally and there is also a centralised Cloud that provides the sustainment for all the sites.” SCARS will enable moving legacy simulator applications to a remotely sustainable On-Premises Equipment (OPE) construct. The OPE provides a virtualised environment with microservices as a local Cloud in support of high-fidelity simulators. The vision “is to move to an ‘Apps Store’ concept with a common applications library pro vided by the centralised Cloud within the same cyber-secure and private infrastructure,” Kendir told us.
The SCARS effort to standardise USAF simulators is time consuming, but the plan is to “get there in the next 5 to 10 years for all the simulators” and “there will be lots of advantages,” Kendir told MS&T. One such advantage is that it will be possible to sustain all sites, for example cyber-security updates, from a single location and the financial savings from that alone will be considerable.
MAK/VR TheWorld – Modelling and simulation software company MAK Technologies have been exploiting Cloud and streaming technology for five years now. Dan Brockway, MAK VP Marketing, told MS&T that the Cloud enables them to host demonstrations and deliver training and geographic data to their customers. Using Amazon Cloud Services (AWS), they host a secure persistent synthetic environment that is a digital twin of
Above Part of MAK Technologies’ online “Guide to Virtualisation” aimed at informing the M&S community on streaming, virtualisation and Cloud deployment. Image credit: MAK Technologies.
MAK software and training system con figurations in their labs in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Orlando, Florida. Once logged in, customers and potential customers can initiate Cloud resources, spin them up and run the entire simula tion in the Cloud. As well as being used for demonstrations, the system is used to deliver training courses to customers in the US and around the world. “Our sys tem is hosted on several datacenters, and we can move it to others when we need to get the latency down for users in different locations around the world,” Brockway told us.
MAK also host a persistent terrain data server (VR-TheWorld Server online) so users of their MAK ONE Applications can stream geographic data directly into their applications. If the Internet is not available to customers, the same VR-TheWorld Server capability can be hosted locally.
As for the future, Brockway told MS&T, “There are a few basic challenges that affect any distributed or remotely accessed system: security, cost, latency, performance,” however “as the tech nology, and frankly the customer base, matures… I feel like there is plenty of
room these days to design Cloud deploy ments into simulation systems. It just takes good system engineering.”
NATO M&S COE/MSaaS – Multinational access to M&S is perhaps an ideal use case for the Cloud and stream ing. The NATO M&S Centre of Excel lence community has been collaborat ing for a number of years on developing M&S as a Service (MSaaS) and exploiting Cloud approaches. Now moving beyond research, the Open Cloud Environment ApplicatioN (OCEAN) was integrated (June 2022) within NATO’s Coali tion Warrior Interoperability eXercise
The concept of sharing computers at distance has been around since the very early days of the Internet but it was not until the 1990s the term “Cloud” gained popularity, expressing the empty space between the end user and the provider. In 1999, Salesforce pioneered the idea of delivering software programs to end users over the Internet, and in 2002 Amazon introduced its web-based retail services allowing developers to use its spare computing capacity.
By 2011 there was more widespread use of hybrid clouds, a notable example being the gaming company Zynga, which launched its new games in the public Cloud (Amazon), enabling rapid scaling for successful games, then - once capacity was understood - they could be moved to their private Cloud.
Now, Cloud computing can embrace a wide variety of services.
Amazon (33%), Microsoft (22%), and Google (10%) collectively harvested 65% of global spend (outside China) on Cloud computing in Q1 2022, according to a recent report by the US-based Synergy Research Group. This translates into quarterly earnings of US$52.7 billion and annual revenues of $191 billion for the Cloud providers market, growing 34% year-on-year.
The top three companies dominate the market, leaving only niche players. As one example, Shadow is a Cloud-computing service for gamers providing, effectively, a Windows-based gamingoptimised PC in the Cloud.
For the future, Gartner says more than half of enterprise IT spending will shift to the Cloud by 2025 and almost two-thirds of spending on application software will be directed toward Cloud technologies in 2025, up from 58% in 2022. “The shift to the Cloud has only accelerated over the past two years due to Covid-19, as organizations responded to a new business and social dynamic,” said Michael Warrilow, Research Vice President at Gartner.
Beyond the MS&T community, the Cloud approach is being actively pursued by defence departments to meet their wider digital needs. The journey can be rocky. The US DoD published its Cloud Strategy in 2018, stating the Cloud was a “Department priority” and “is a fun damental component of the global infrastructure that will empower the warfighter with data and is critical to maintaining our military’s technological advantage.” Subsequently the DoD awarded the $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) Cloud comput ing programme to Microsoft in 2019. However, with many hurdlesincluding AWS battling the decision in the courts - by 2021 JEDI was cancelled “due to evolving requirements, increased Cloud conver sancy, and industry advances,” the Pentagon stated.
The Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) succeeds JEDI but at the time of writing the contract award had slipped to end2022.
Other nations also talk Cloud but struggle with full implementa tion. The UK MoD’s 2021 Digital Strategy points towards a “Digital Backbone” which will be “Cloud-based” but it is not clear if and when this might support S&T users.
“… cloud computing is the delivery of computing services—including servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence—over the Internet (‘the cloud’) to offer faster innovation, flexible resources, and economies of scale.” – Microsoft
(CWIX) to test its MSaaS capability, but also support the wide C2 and network experimentation. OCEAN is a collabora tion between the NATO M&S Centre of Excellence, the NATO M&S Group, and the Leonardo company. According to NATO, “OCEAN extends the traditional virtual environments for experimenta tion, testing and training activities to a dynamic (Cloud-based) environment able to create virtual machines, con tainers, and virtual networks in isolated or joined sessions.” Leonardo state OCEAN will enable M&S users “to move from distributed, extremely rigid train ing systems to centralised Cloud-based systems, which will provide on-demand services and be reconfigurable accord ing to customer needs.”
Pitch/Scaling Up – Federating simula tion across multiple computing nodes and wide area networks is the breadand-butter business for Pitch Technolo gies. Suranga Wickramasekera, Business Development Manager, told MS&T that the Cloud is another extension of this, and citing RAF Gladiator and Exercise Viking as examples “many of our cus tomers are exploiting Cloud platforms and technologies for simulation pro jects… so they can scale up their solu tions without the need to increase the footprint of on-premise hardware.” Pitch itself has its own private Cloud called Global Simulation Arena (GSA) which allows remote students to access a sim ulation federation without the need for installing on their computers. Pitch are also exploiting public AWS Cloud ser vices in support of instructor-led online training courses.
BISim/Terrain – For Morrison, BISim’s “journey to the Cloud started in 2013 when the US Army SE Core said they wanted the entire planet, they didn't want postage-stamp terrain in VBS3.” This data distribution challenge pointed to a Cloud solution and BISim started building the VBS Blue engine with the “idea that at some point in the future our customers will want this whole-earth capability and Cloud-enabled simulation will become a reality,” said Morrison.
Building on its Cloud expertise, BISim’s latest product is Mantle ETM (Enterprise Terrain Management) that delivers a (local and public) Cloud tech
nology-based terrain pipeline tool, allowing users to take terrain data from different sources and delivering a base globe to mul tiple simulations or visualisation runtimes such as Unreal, VBS and Unity. Morrison explained that if “we have a crater event in one engine, you see it in the other engine.” BISim already have a launch customer for Mantle ETM and basing it on Cloud tech nologies they expect it to be future-proof. Morrison continued: “With containerised services you could come and use a com pletely new game engine 10 years from now and all the terrain data that you're building today can still be employed with the new engine.”
BISim is a recently acquired subsidiary of BAE Systems.
We are already seeing extensive use of Cloud technologies, and now distributed simulation standards are evolving to exploit them. The Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization (SISO) is expected to publish the new High-Level Architecture (HLA) 4 standard later in 2022, including support for Cloudfriendly programming languages, easier containerisation and orchestration of simulation apps, and cyber-hardening stand ardisation.
Pitch’s Wickramasekera told MS&T, “Long term, we expect more and more simulation services developed to run in the Cloud environments and make full use of elastic resources and other services like load balancing, fault tolerance, security orchestra tion, and so on.” Standards will enable greater use of the Cloud but Wickramasekera cautioned, “Many training networks are still constrained at point of need… so one of the big challenges is to enable training in bandwidth-constrained defence networks.”
BISim’s Morrison also envisages a more Cloud-based future, and the company are getting ready for it “because we're see ing customer demand.” He explained: “The next VBS will effec tively have two modes. One will be similar to what we have now
Above A contract for the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability is expected to be awarded in 2022.
Image credit: Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Jacob Osborne.
with VBS4, but there will be a separate Cloud-enabled web browser mode so you can set up your training scenario, execute the simulation and do your terrain development, all in the web browser.”
Morrison also revealed that the company are developing “VBS Workers”, which provide a containerised version of the core VBS AI and simulation, making it possible to scale up VBS entity counts far beyond the normal limits of a VBS multiplayer scenario. The Cloud-based approach will enable VBS Workers to run on any scalability framework and “you
could have 100,000 of these Workers to get vastly increased numbers of highfidelity VBS artificial intelligent entities to support whatever simulation activity you're doing, and that’s for pattern of life and military AI,” Morrison told us.
In the early days of the Cloud there was a reluctance in some quarters as to its viability, but MS&T has seen that Cloud-based technologies are now being extensively used in S&T applications. There are challenges in the cost of trans forming legacy systems and sometimes it might not be the most cost-effective approach. Also, wider defence digital
investment and security policies may put up barriers. But longer term, appli cations and technologies that can fully exploit the power of the Cloud and that are ‘Cloud native’ offer many benefits for the S&T community, whether they are run on a private or public network or both. How much defence decision mak ers need to encourage and support the trend to the Cloud is for debate, but ulti mately it seems to be a decision around where are your computing resources best placed, how much are you willing to share them, and your approach to Cloud software standard. mst
To IBM, a “hybrid Cloud combines and unifies public Cloud and private Cloud services from multiple Cloud vendors to create a single, flexible, cost-optimal IT infrastructure”. It further defines a hybrid multi-Cloud as one that “includes more than one public Cloud from more than one Cloud service provider”. The benefits of a hybrid Cloud include that the organisation can decide where the applica tion and data best sit from a security and compliance perspective; performance and latency can be better optimised; and computing capabilities can better respond to demand, improving flexibility and resilience.
With improvements in networking and Cloud technologies it is now possible to deliver and consume multimedia in a continuous man ner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. This so-called streaming can be seen in music, video and gaming. Although video game streaming is technologically demand ing, all the big three Cloud providers have game streaming services together with NVIDIA’s GeForce NOW, which had 12 million users in 2021. The main advantage of game streaming is that it is much more user-hardware independent, although it does rely on having good bandwidth and low latency.
With recent developments in Cloud computing technology and service-oriented architectures, MSaaS is a NATO-driven concept that includes the provision of M&S applications via the as-a-service model of Cloud computing. The MSaaS paradigm supports stan dalone use as well as integration of multiple simulated and real sys tems into a unified Cloud-based simulation environment whenever the need arises.
Virtualisation, Containers, Kubernetes and Cloud Native Virtualisation is a long-standing technique for creating virtual machines that are fully fledged computers but are virtual or simu lated. One advantage of virtualisation is that legacy applications can be more easily run on new operating systems. Much like shipping
containers drove efficiencies in transport through standardisa tion, Cloud containers are a solution to the problem of how to get software to run reliably when moved from one computing environ ment or Cloud to another. A container image consists of everything needed to run an application and is readily portable.
Docker is one of the most popular tools for application contain erisation. Kubernetes, first developed by Google, is an open-source system for automating deployment scaling and management of containerised applications. According to Microsoft, Cloud-native architecture and technologies are “an approach to designing, con structing, and operating workloads that are built in the Cloud and take full advantage of the Cloud computing model.”
Driven in part by increased adoption of Cloud and mobile services, Zero Trust is an IT security model that assumes networks, applica tions and data should not be trusted. It is rooted in the principle of never trust, always verify (devices and users). Of late, as organisa tions seek to exploit on-premises and off-premises Cloud technol ogy, this security approach is increasingly seen as a solution to contemporary and future cyber-security challenges. For example, a recent White House Executive Order states the US Federal Govern ment must “advance toward Zero Trust Architecture”, meeting zero trust requirements by 2024, and “accelerate movement to secure Cloud services.”
Hyperscale Clouds rely on massively scalable server architectures and virtual networking and provide an ability to scale appropriately as increased demand is added to the system.
Gartner posits that edge computing is where information process ing is carried out close to where things and people produce or consume that information. Edge and Cloud are complementary concepts, not competitive styles or architectures; location is the critical determinant.
Andy
FawkesWith the buzz about com mercial eVTOLs an almost daily item in the global 24/7 news cycle, it’s neces sary to manage expectations about the advancement of these aircraft in the US defense enterprise.
First, don’t expect to see anytime soon the Pentagon ordering numbers of eVTOLs to rival the tallies being reported for commercial OEMs and operators.
Next, don’t look for eVTOLs to be completing diverse US military mis sions in the near future, in particular airto-ground attack, operational ISR and like combat missions. Those battlefield tasks are increasingly being delegated throughout the battlespace to UASs and other vehicles in DoD’s quickly expand ing advanced air mobility portfolio.
And finally, unlike the commercial aviation sector, the Pentagon’s eVTOL development focus is narrow. So, instead of the frenetic pace of research, develop ment, test and evaluation (RDT&E) at eVTOL OEMs and other industry sites around the US, the Pentagon’s lead is Agility Prime, a division of the US Air Force’s AFWERX innovation arm. These constraints aside, the military-industry team is making significant progress in advancing eVTOL baseline technology
for planned, initial logistics missions. Part of the successes in advancing pilot training programs for the first and follow-on tranches of these aircraft are being supported by S&T com panies active in the defense and commercial aviation sectors.
The military-industry team supporting Agility Prime reads like a who’s who list in the community.
On the service side, Air Education and Training Command Detachment 62 (Det 62) was established to advance and man age operator and maintainer training development. Helping to form a US whole-of-government focal point for eVTOL development, Agility Prime partnerships with the US Army, US Navy Test Pilot School, US Coast Guard, and the US Marine Corps have been established for logistics support concepts, and with NASA and other government entities for other work.
An array of companies is participating in Agility Prime RDT&E activities. Several, early representative milestones achieved by eVTOL industry members include:
• December 2020: First company achieves uncrewed airwor thiness (Joby Aviation);
• March 2021: First crewed airworthiness achieved (Beta Technologies);
• March 2021: First operational assessment of military trans port of eVTOL aircraft for contingency response (LIFT Air craft)
• May 2021: First demonstration of medical evacuation capa bility using Agility Prime company (Kittyhawk)
• December 2021: First Air Force remotely piloted flight of eVTOL aircraft (Kittyhawk);
• March 2022: First crewed flight of Agility Prime electric partner aircraft (Beta Technologies)
Above Joby Aviation has a contract to broaden its defense partnerships to include the US Marine Corps, and will participate in Agility Prime directed flight tests and use case exploration, including resupply, relocation of personnel, and emergency medical response applications.
Image credit: Joby Aviation. Opposite Aptima's groundbreaking work in support of Agility Prime is expected to provide "hard data for decision makers on how to improve design, training and policies around these new types of vehicles,” according to Dr. Samantha Emerson.
Image credit: Beta Technologies/ Brian Jenkins.
Beyond the above and other OEMs’ quick-paced work to address propulsion and other technology underpinnings, attention is concur rently focused on other weighty issues, including the skill sets military eVTOL pilots will require in initial fleets of these aircrafts.
Dr. Samantha Emerson, scientist in Aptima’s Training, Learning & Readi ness Division, and Project Manager for the company’s eVTOL contract with Agility Prime AFWERX, initially told MS&T her company is collabo rating with AETC Det 62 to gain a better baseline understanding of what it will take to train a new gen eration of pilots in these types of aircraft. The PM explained, “For this study, we’re looking at how long it takes to achieve a given level of flight proficiency and how that learn ing trajectory is affected by previous experiences (no flight experience vs experienced pilots; fixed-wing vs helicopter pilots) and by varying lev els of automation (semi-automated vs highly automated). We’re also using a multi-modal approach to answer that question that involves leveraging the subject matter expertise of expe rienced instructor pilots rating their subjective perception of the quality of performance as well as system-based data pulled from the simulator to pro duce objective insights as well.”
Emerson provided her insights on this program about two months into the contract and reported, at this early stage, Aptima had completed data collection and was just now starting to dive into the data. As a teaser, the PM added, “2022 I/ITSEC [Aptima Booths 501/1292] will be the first pre view into the data, but we’ll be releas ing more reports through other public venues soon.”
While Aptima is still early in the data analysis process, the team can however say “that experienced pilots (both fixed- and rotary-wing) are showing pretty rapid learning trajecto ries and that training times will prob ably be much shorter than would be
necessary with conventional aircraft. Anec dotally, helicopter pilots pick up on the hov ering tasks a little more easily and learn how to transition between modes of flight (on the wing versus hovering) more quickly than fixed-wing pilots. But we’ll have to wait for the data to confirm that,” she emphasized, and added, Aptima is “also anticipating that there may be some areas where previous flight experience may attenuate learning curves for these types of aircraft. For exam ple, in the more highly automated aircraft, the instructor pilots have noticed that other experienced pilots have a tendency to ‘over steer,’ providing more input into the controls than is actually necessary.”
Aptima’s work on behalf of its Air Force
ing, as Emerson confirmed; currently, almost no data exists on learning to fly these types of aircraft. “And certainly, there aren’t any other studies out there that examine both ab initio and experi enced pilots in two actual (rather than idealized) eVTOL prototypes using both subjective expert opinions as well as objective system-based data. The hope is that we can provide hard data for deci sion makers on how to improve design, training, and policies around these new types of vehicles.”
The Aptima leader was further asked that at this early point, whether and if training devices might eventually dif fer between eVTOL training enterprises and those supporting legacy-era aviation
training organizations. While she initially responded, “I’m not sure about training devices specifically,” she enthusiasti cally pointed out, “Preliminarily, it does look like training times may be reduced, which is a very good thing because we’re already facing a pilot shortage, and there are about 700 different prototypes in dif ferent stages of development that will eventually need pilots. Of course, not all of those prototypes will go into develop ment, but we’re already seeing a wide range of designs with differing levels and types of automation that are going to require pilots to learn (or unlearn) a vari ety of different skills.”
George Forbes, Jr., CEO at Immersive Display Solutions, Inc. (IDSI), empha sized his team’s activities in this sector started well before the Air Force Agility Prime program came into being, as “we were engaged with a leading eVTOL developer and we have been fortunate to provide solutions to the companies who have emerged as leaders in the market.”
To date, IDSI has delivered systems to two Agility-funded companies including mobile trailer-based systems and fixed installation for software-integration labs and demonstrations centers.
The industry executive concluded by pointing out IDSI has a range of solu tions available to its eVTOL customers. “Our customers have found our trans portable solutions have been popular for marketing applications. Some customers require a small form factor so we use our compact VisionStation3 display. Other customers focus on larger size while still being able to collapse down for ease of transport so we deploy a reverse pres sure screen technology. Lastly, for the fixed installation customers we offer our hard-shell domes.”
The pace of activities in the US DoD eVTOL enterprise is accelerating, and thus the concurrent demand “signal” to field qualified pilots – presenting signifi cant opportunities for current and other S&T industry members.
In fiscal year 2023 (FY23), which began this October 1, the Air Force plans to spend nearly $74M (million) on Agility
Prime RDT&E, $3.6M on procurement and $85M on operations. To help place the Pentagon’s eVTOL investment in perspective, one F-35A, the USAF’s fifth-generation aircraft, costs about $111M.
In FY23, the Air Force plans to use RDT&E resources to con tinue risk-reduction ground and flight testing with multiple air craft manufacturers. Ground test examples include wind tunnel, environmental, cyber protection and electromagnetic interfer ence characterization. Prototype flight testing will characterize performance, handling qualities and mission system effective ness. Continued airworthiness assessments will be aimed at pro viding flight-certified vehicles and any required updates to exist ing airworthiness assessments. Flight tests will be performed in realistic operating environments and scenarios to provide data for business case analysis and fielding.
In addition, the program is planning to award FY23 procure ment contracts and establish operational leases for approxi mately 10 aircraft for early use. The initial quantities are depend ent on company development progression, asset availability and lease pricing solidification. The Air Force expects an additional 14 aircraft will be in developmental testing using RDT&E funding for a total of approximately 24 aircraft procured, on operational leases, or in testing via FY23 funding.
Against this flurry of activity, Aptima’s Emerson concluded with several themes that MS&T companion publication CAT observes at its conferences, including WATS (www.wats-event. com). After saying she hoped that this increased demand will produce as much of an opportunity as it will a challenge, the Aptima leader said, “This is a great time to let go of legacy ways of teaching and instead move toward more competency-based and adaptive forms of training. Training development pipelines will need to be more agile, responsive, and efficient in identifying training requirements, generating training content, and devel oping reliable proficiency assessments. Hopefully, our data will be able to provide a baseline to start building those curricula in that pipeline and will also provide evidence to the FAA and other interested agencies that human operators are capable of safely operating eVTOL platforms.”
and Maj. Jonathan Appleby flew Beta Technologies’ electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, ALIA, as the first-ever Airmen to fly an electric aircraft with a military airworthiness.
Image credit: Beta Technologies/ Brian Jenkins.
MS&T: LIFT was recently awarded a Phase 3 contract through the United States Air Force’s Agility Prime Program to continue experi mentation and flight test efforts around HEXA, LIFT’s all-electric, single-seat eVTOL aircraft. Highlight some of your key activities in this contract.
Kevin Rustagi (KR): We’re going to be extending what we’ve established as a solid, safe envelope. We have established our “beginner flight enve lope.” We’re launching commercial operations with that – and that’s without the ballistic para chute active, about 40ft [12m] above ground level. We’ll be extending that in Phase 3 along with the 96th Test Group at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida.
MS&T: Does LIFT have other tests, demonstrations or other activities planned with HEXA, beyond this Air Force contract, with other military services?
KR: We’re actively exploring opportunities to work with first responders and a variety of other government entities to leverage the work under this SBIR Phase 3 contract. This is a wonderful, open contract that was designed to allow them to focus on and adopt this technology. The focus of this contract is on some pretty exciting developments with the airframe and platform itself. We also have additional demonstrations planned at Eglin.
MS&T: Differentiate your activities to date with the HEXA platform for the Air Force customer and that planned for the commercial market.
KR: They go hand-in-hand. One of the biggest things with the Air Force that we are beginning to look at is beyond visual line-ofsight applications. We’ve delivered the first cargo version to the Air Force. A key thing is our aircraft is a modular platform – it can be a manned aircraft or crewed aircraft. You can attach different modules – we think that will be very compelling for first respond ers. The Air Force is on the edge of this technology – they are helping us to expand the envelope. They have done a great job in supporting eVTOL adoption, being the primary hub in the US and, really, the world. We’re also starting to think about what flight over congested areas will look like for first responders. And back on the commercial side, while we’re starting beginner flights this year, we do foresee allowing operators to fly higher, faster and farther – the Air Force is helping us with that, too.
MS&T: The status of training operators and maintainers of LIFT eVTOL vehicles?
KR: Training is super important – this is related to safety. When it comes to training on the commercial side, you’ll see we provide pilots with about one hour of training, and this is key, for introducing beginner flights. For DoD operators and first responders, we’re pro viding more instruction to be able to potentially fly over congested areas and into a battle zone. There will be advanced training that we’re working on with Air Force AETC (Air Education and Training Command). On the maintenance side, we’re consistently improving our maintenance program. There will be training for maintainers, which we already have, and government and customers as well. We see that going hand-in-hand. This is a long-term effort. The goal is to provide that support and, over time, other entities will be able to maintain their fleets with our support.
MS&T: Is LIFT using virtual reality and other technologies in its training programs?
KR: Yes, absolutely. We have built a VR-enabled flight simulator that is a replica of our cockpit. We’ve been testing and using it with potential future pilots. We’ve put several hundred individuals through the simulator. It’s quite simple – using an Oculus headset inside the cock pit. From those who have flown HEXA, myself included, we believe this simulator is quite real. You have an actual aircraft joystick and the cock pit is an exact replica, except it is fiberglass and not carbon fiber. In the future we envision incorporating other technologies like augmented reality during the actual flight itself.
MS&T: Beyond Oculus, are there any other S&T industry suppliers or partners for HEXA training?
KR: We’ve spoke with some interesting DoD and aerospace industry suppliers. An outside contractor built our simulator. This is a great platform because you can load Google Earth and the “real world” into those maps and fly them, using a video game engine at the back end. And this is also important – you are flying the exact mission you fly during training, except you are on the ground in the simulator.
MS&T: Given LIFT’s fast-paced activities and customer interac tion, is consideration being given to a HEXA “schoolhouse,” to allow greater student throughput?
KR: Yes, we’ve thought about this especially for DoD and first responders, giving them a broader training program. That would most likely last several weeks, where we would take students through it. It’s also important to remember we are basically build ing a very large drone for people to fly. It’s a different configura tion. We’ve taken the portions of flight that are most tricky, most prone to human error or being subject to other forces – wind, for example. We’ve taken these challenges and automated them for takeoff, landing and other parts of the flight mission. We can also do a more manual mode. But at the end of the day, you are telling the flight computer: I want to go forward; I want to take off, etc.
MS&T: What will our readers learn about LIFT’s evolving HEXA program through the end of 2022?
KR: We’re constantly expanding our flight envelope – ironing it out and feeling very confident with the initial flight envelope we are in. And then expanding it – to faster, higher, farther. We’re going to see some “serious envelope expansion” and our commercial launch.
It is some 50 years since the UK aerospace industry produced a new training aircraft, the last being the Hawk TMk1 – although arguably the Hawk T2 was so different in many respects that it could, and perhaps should, have been called something else. All that may be about to change with the development of a new family of modular aircraft by a company called Aeralis. MS&T’s Dim Jones visited them in their new facility in Bristol.
Ifirst became aware of Aeralis some years ago through an exRAF colleague who was part of the original team. Their innovative plan was to produce a modular design in which a common forward fuselage and undercarriage section would be coupled with different wings and engine nacelles to produce a basic trainer, an advanced trainer and a display aircraft. I confess that my initial reaction, like, I suspect, many of my contemporaries was: ‘Nice idea, but it’ll never work – and even if it did, no one would be adventurous enough to buy it’.
Well, the company has shown that the idea will work and, in the interven ing years, enough large, influential and reputable organisations and aerospace companies have entered into collabora tive arrangements with and provided financial backing to Aeralis to suggest that there is every chance that there will be a market for it.
Aeralis is the brainchild of its founder and now CEO, Tristan Crawford, who spent many years working in the aero space industry, but principally in the civil sector. He recognised that many air forces
were struggling with their flying training pipelines, and specifically with the num ber of platforms they were using and the associated lack of flexibility and cost of ownership. In his work with Airbus on variants of the A300 series, he considered that two characteristics of their opera tion could be transferred to the military environment. The first was interchange ability of components to suit customer requirements, in the case of airliners such items as wingtips and engines; and the second was the ownership model, in that 52% of today’s airliners are leased by their operators rather than owned. At this point, the UK was concentrating on component and supply-chain activity, and had ceded whole-aircraft authority to other nations. Tristan Crawford then moved to QinetiQ at Boscombe Down to gain whole-aircraft experience as a tri als officer on the Harrier GR7, and was struck by the sight of a Tucano and Hawk T1 sitting next to each other on the ramp, essentially performing similar tasks, but with entirely different components and support equipment; there must be scope for rationalisation initiatives, such as a common core fuselage.
Above
First stop in the quest for funding was UK Defence & Security Exports (DSE), where the view was that the idea was feasible, and the timing was good – many training fleets around the world were showing their age, and there was nothing much new in the pipeline: it was not apparent, for instance, that BAE Systems were developing a new training aircraft beyond Hawk. Cost analysis and marketing studies suggested that a common basic and advanced trainer would generate a 35% saving in through-life costs, and further variants would increase this figure. Manufacturing feasibility was not an issue, since there would be no fundamentally new technology involved, and Tristan Crawford was never in any doubt that the concept was practical; to quote him: “Compared to operations in the civil sector, this should technically be a piece of cake”. The next step was more serious funding, and this was provided to a limited extent by the RAF’s
Aeralis variants over the White Cliffs of Dover. Image credit: Aeralis.Rapid Capability Office, which predicted correctly that it could be used to leverage additional support from organisations with which it worked, such as a Sovereign Wealth Fund in Qatar, now known to be Barzan Holdings.
Subsequently, such illustrious com panies as Thales, Siemens, Atkins and Rolls-Royce have entered into collabora tion agreements with Aeralis, and there are currently 135 people from 16 compa nies engaged in preliminary design work; there is ample expertise within UK in all facets of design and production. Aeralis is in discussion with the UK MoD about its future requirements, and a Memorandum of Understanding was recently signed with Ascent Flight Training, the consor tium which currently provides the UK’s Military Flight Training System (MFTS).
The aim is to produce a suite of aircraft which combines capability with affordability. While being very aware of the performance parameters of the US T-X (T-38 replacement) programme, but also of the size and cost of the designs which were offered, Aeralis’s experience and research indicates that, above about 7 or 8t Maximum Take-Off Weight and 3 to 4t Empty Mass, costs tend to rise exponentially; these figures allow for about one tonne of fuel, one tonne of payload and a ferry range of about 1000 nm. In terms of performance, and using the Advanced Jet Trainer (AJT) variant as a benchmark, the Aeralis aircraft would provide the level of agile flight performance needed to allow a student to demonstrate skills such as airmanship, formation, navigation and G-awareness, while enabling the development of techniques, by incorporating advanced avionics to replicate the systems, data and sensor management of more expensive front-line aircraft; indeed, the cockpits would be reconfigurable to match a specific operational type. Live, Virtual and Constructive (LVC) technology would be incorporated from the outset, with a supporting suite of synthetic trainers, and Aeralis envisage a modular syllabus with performancebased progression.
Since its inception, the scope of the programme has expanded and, in addi
tion to the basic, AJT and display variants, there is the potential for incremental development of:
• an aggressor aircraft, with sensors and emitters;
• a naval variant, incorporating fuselage modifications, arrestor hook and strengthened undercarriage for deck operations;
• uncrewed variants, carrying out roles such as ISTAR and air refuelling; and
• light combat variants, crewed or uncrewed (loyal wingman), carrying a variety of weapons.
When used as part of a combined fleet, there will be 85% commonality of components and above 50% through-life cost reduction. The reconfigurable components comprise: wings and associated lift devices, including a high-aspect variant and optional Leading Edge Root Extension w(LERX); cockpits, either dual, single or uncrewed (the additional space available in the latter options could be used for avionics or fuel), and with cock pit systems to match the intended role; tail unit, either conven tional or reduced-observable V-tailplane; and engine(s), single or twin. Engine options will satisfy the requirements of customers who are aligned with certain manufacturers, and those who – for reasons of desired performance or safety – prefer a twin-engine configuration. The concept of an engine nacelle mounted on the fuselage, but structurally separate from it, is unique and has been patented by Aeralis.
Another programme innovation concerns ownership. Over 50% of aircraft in the commercial aviation world are now owned by specialist leasing companies, rather than the airlines. This allows the airlines to have available the number of aircraft they need when they need them, and in the configurations they require. These are not big companies; there are only 12 of them yet; four of these own half the aircraft leased. In a slightly different environment, the same could apply to military flight training; the number of aircraft, and their configurations could be varied to suit the customer’s changing needs in the training pipeline,
Above Exploded view of Aeralis modular design concept. Image credit: Aeralis.
and the leasing company’s focus would be entirely on delivering airframe hours in the required configurations. It would also allow the leasing company, rather than the customer, to hold stocks of the various module options, thus conferring economies of scale.
The whole design, manufacturing and support process is underpinned by a digital environment. Only two compa nies possess the toolsets to create this environment, and the means of allowing the various toolsets to talk to each other and – the ‘digital fabric’ – and Aeralis have teamed with Siemens to create Aer side, which enables a digital network of the entire programme: from requirements through systems modelling and software development to Test & Evaluation, but thence to production management, fleet management and supply-chain man agement. Indeed, such are the vagaries of the physical test environment that inherently controllable synthetic model ling can be more consistent than physi cal testing, and the data thus acquired, once tested for validity against physical test evidence, can be used later for cer tification purposes. This supports the aspirations of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and the Military Aviation Author ity (MAA) – both of whom are supportive of the programme – for a more stream lined certification process, and could lay the foundations for development of future air systems, the risks and costs of which would otherwise be unsustainable and unaffordable.
The development of the aircraft and its variants is planned in a roadmap of low-risk ‘tech steps’, in which each step de-risks the next, and starts with the modular demonstrator in 2025. The baseline variant will be the AJT in 2028 and then the development really starts with later variants in around 2030. A single-seat configuration will allow extra fuel or avionics, and it will be a question of what the customer wants in terms of airframe and systems performance. Aeralis has worked with Rolls-Royce to produce additional electrical power generation capability such that advanced EW systems can be fielded, and the nose module can accommodate either radar
or threat emulator. The aggressor design point could also cover a light attack capability, just as the AJT would be the basis for a display aircraft. The naval variant in 2031 would need modifications to the fuselage for deck landings, and an uncrewed version in 2032 with options for engine, hi-aspect wing and agnostic flight control system.
At this point, there would be scope for some of the ‘net-zero’ propulsion sys tems – electric and hybrid – and finally the ‘loyal wingman’ combat variant in 2033 with a low-observable V-tail and the addition of weapons. Lastly, although not a specific design variant, there could be a market for a front-line companion aircraft. As the constraints on live flying, particularly of Gen 5 aircraft, become greater, and the Live-Synthetic Bal ance becomes more weighted towards synthetic, there will be a need for pilots to gain live-flying experience on less expensive aircraft but, crucially, with comparable performance and represent ative systems. Using the uncrewed ver sion, there would also be scope for a tac tical tanker, along the lines of the MQ-25 being developed by Boeing, and of the same order of size and offload as MQ-25 and the previously successful Douglas A-4 Skyhawk ‘Buddy’ air refueller.
Key to the Aeralis operating concept is availability, with the user concentrat ing on getting the aircraft in the air doing their jobs, and the supporting companies focusing on providing the required air frames in the specified configurations. The aircraft service concept is being developed through such organisations as Affinity, providing a range of aircraft as a service to the UK Military Flight Training System, and AirTanker – a leasing com pany consortium of Airbus, Rolls-Royce, Babcock and Thales, which operates the Airbus A-330 MRTT Voyager, and achieves availability of over 85% – in the provision of air refuelling assets to the RAF and RN.
The past 25 years have also seen a major shift in the way UK air forces have been supported: from the organic support model of the Cold War and 1990s; through Integrated Logistic Support to the focus on platform availability enshrined in
the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) 2005; to the current ‘partnered enterprise model’, which aligns KPIs and promotes joint problem solving. The trajectory throughout has been a progressive transfer of risk from government to industry, and the next milestone – SDSR 2025 – could see the trend continue towards the agile acquisition and delivery model on which the Aeralis strategy is based.
Stages 1 (Feasibility) and 2 (Concept Design) of the Aeralis plan are complete. Stage 3 (Pre-Production) is ongoing, and will include a first flight in 2025. This will be followed by Certification from 2025 to 2027, and finally full Production after 2028. This coincides with a period in which many air forces’ training fleets will be approaching the end of their service lives and will require replacement. The Boeing T-7A Red Hawk is an obvious contender but has a backlog of production to work through for the US market, and a level of performance – and commensurate cost – arguably beyond the requirements of some customers. Joint training ventures, such as the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training programme (ENJJPT) at Shep pard AFB in the US, NATO Flying Train ing Canada (NFTC) and, more recently, the International Flight Training School (IFTS) in Italy have shown that there is an appetite for collaborative flying train ing, into which the Aeralis concept could fit very neatly.
There are currently 135 people across 16 organisations working on Aeralis development. The company calculates that, within the next decade, 600+ air craft in trainer and aggressor roles alone will require replacement by nations as diverse as Australia, Japan, Sweden and Canada – not to mention the US Navy’s requirement for a T-45 replacement –and, of course, the UK which Aeralis regards as a key potential launch cus tomer. The market is there, the trend in support is increasingly towards availabil ity contracting, leasing is an attractive alternative to ownership, and the modu lar concept has been shown to be fea sible. From a ‘nice idea’ to an emerging reality, the Aeralis model has come a long way in a short time, and we will observe the upcoming developments with keen anticipation.
Ian Mccrudden, Chief Operating Officer for the Euro pean Training and Simulation Association (ETSA), interviewed Peter Hitchcock, Vice President of the Thales Training & Simulation business, about the recent acquisition of RUAG Simulation & Training and the key chal lenges they are facing to support training on the next generation of land, naval and air vehicles. Adapted by permission of ETSA.
Based in France (near Paris), Peter Hitchcock has held the post of Vice President of the Training & Simulation activity since January 2020. In his career spanning 32 years with Thales he has worked in operational and headquarters roles of increasing responsibility in both the UK and France.
Prior to his current position, he was based in Toulouse as the VP responsible for Thales’ Civil Avionics Business.
Using questions generated by ETSA members, Ian and Peter discussed Thales T&S capability, what drove Thales’s acquisi tion of RUAG S&T and what the future holds for the combined company.
After undertaking exclusive negotiations, which started late in 2021, the international defence technology giant Thales has recently completed the acquisition of the Simulation and Train ing (S&T) business of Swiss company RUAG (originally Rüstungs Unternehmen Aktiengesellschaft). The acquisition will provide advanced training solutions and services for combat-ready air and land forces across the globe.
ETSA: As you enter this new era, can you provide a thumbnail description of the scope of the Simulation and Training solutions which are now covered by Thales?
Peter Hitchcock (PH): The three main areas in which we are active are -
1. Development and support of simulators for military air, land and naval markets;
2. Development and operation of civil helicopter simulators; and
3. Provision of operational training services to armed forces.”
Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, ETSA members have seen a step change in the way people have been trained with the introduction of working from home, remote online learning through webinar tools, remote assistance tools and the inte gration of augmented and virtual reality into training solutions.
ETSA: Where do Thales’s strengths lie? PH: The first is our ability to support our customers, whatever it takes. This was particularly striking throughout the Covid crisis: our engineers and instructors, our products and systems all continued to deliver, and no training days were lost.
Then there is our ability to couple tech nical expertise with operational knowl edge. For instance, we’re currently deliver ing complex rear-crew mission trainers for the French Navy (Atlantique 2) and Royal Navy (Crowsnest), drawing on not just our simulation expertise but also the mission expertise we have in the Group.
At a time when there is an increased demand for national sovereignty, being able to capitalize on Thales’s global foot print is key, whether through local units or joint ventures. We were recently awarded a training contract in Poland, a success which can be attributed to the local pres ence of Thales in Poland.
From recent media reports, ETSA members have noted that the consolida tion of the RUAG S&T business will see
Above CERBERE live training for the French Army. Image credit: Thales Training & Simulation.
“Very complementary with little or no overlap.”
around 500 people joining the Thales Training & Simulation business from various locations in Switzerland, France, Germany and the United Arab Emirates.
ETSA: What does the acquisition of RUAG Simulation & Training bring to Thales?
PH: RUAG S&T is a major player in live training, covering everything from prime contractor responsibilities to the indi vidual sensors used as well as delivering the services at combat training centres. They also have excellent land simulation product lines. By combining our exper tise, we can accelerate the development of live and constructive training to create the best possible training environments.
This is timely because many armies are going through force modernization programmes. They are introducing a step-change in capabilities which also requires them to transform how they train on new equipment, vehicles, and C4I (Command, Control Communica tions, Computer, Intelligence) systems to obtain even more insight, higher levels of performance and also addressing cost and environmental constraints through merged live and virtual systems.
That is why the CERBERE pro gramme, on which we teamed with RUAG S&T, was introduced alongside the deployment of France’s SCORPION modernisation programme.
The capabilities offered by RUAG S&T in Switzerland, France, Germany, and the UAE will create opportuni ties with new and existing customers, and with the support of Thales’s global network we have ambitious objectives which we can share with local partners.
ETSA: How would you sum up what this move represents?
PH: Thales and RUAG S&T are very com plementary with little or no overlap. The partnership is coherent and the logic is clear: RUAG S&T are “live” specialists whereas Thales background is primar ily in “virtual” technologies. Coming together brings mutual reinforcement, greater critical mass and allows us to accelerate the convergence of tech nologies to build the next generation of hybrid live, virtual and constructive train ing solutions.”
Future synthetic training devices will be required to be linked together to
provide an integrated environment for forces to train and rehearse missions col lectively with a mix of aircraft, land and sea forces. This will require complex multi-force training exercises using realworld high-fidelity visuals, mission soft ware, battle tactics, and fast networks potentially being linked across the globe to other allied assets.
ETSA: What do you see as the key tech nological drivers in the Training & Simu lation business?
PH: A major trend is the increasing cross over of immersive gaming technologies to the professional environment, includ ing progress in graphics and a reduc tion in the cost of hardware. Importantly, gaming technologies have brought mas
sive multi-player environments where people can team up over huge distances to work collectively. Take the operational environments of our customers: individu als rarely work in isolation; they rely on team members, coalition assets, remote sensors as well as open-source informa tion. Therefore, training needs to be able to match that.
ETSA: And finally, what are your next steps?
PH: With the formal acquisition process completed, the next step will be to initi ate the integration of the two companies to create a more efficient business, while ensuring the continuity of activities and operations for the benefit of our armed forces customers. mst
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There was more than the usual scramble for a seat in the 2022 Training & Simulation Industry Symposium (TSIS) auditorium; a record-breaking crowd of 950 attendees celebrated the return to the first “all-live” TSIS event since 2019. MS&T’s Chuck Weirauch managed to snag a chair.
The two-day TSIS conference featured the latest in US military contract opportunities as presented by the country’s leading armed forces training organiza tions. The adjoining banquet hall also became packed at times, as exhibitors from 24 companies demonstrated their latest products.
If there was one major takeaway, it was that the training and simulation community must work harder to improve training pro grams and technologies, because today’s efforts are inadequate to meet the current and future challenges of the opposition. This view was emphasized by several presenters as the US Services focus on what they consider to be key factors essential to mod ernizing their training systems.
“We are doing pretty much what we did for 20 years,” said Capt. Kevin McGee, NAVAIR Program Manager for Aviation Training Systems and Ranges Program. “We are not building the kind of training that we need to move forward with a more agile development cycle. We have made great strides, but we have a long way to go.”
“We need to think beyond what we are comfortable with, so we need a mindset-shift to think beyond where we are,” McGee emphasized. “The system we have built up is not adequate for the new training concepts. We need to work together to produce new and novel things to develop a more agile training schedule.”
Capt. Dan Covelli, Commanding Officer, Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division (NAWCTSD) also advocated not just “raising the bar” above the performance of the opposi
tion, but to “bend the curve” to always be above that bar by increasing levels and frequency of training. “Raising the bar means to try harder,” Covelli explained. But raising the bar will only get you so far. So we bend the curve. We have to increase our training throughput, placing more emphasis on our own Distributed Mission Training and with Coalition part ners. We just have to be more agile.”
Scott Burlingame, Deputy Director for the F-35 Joint Program Office Training Systems and Simulations, also cited the need to change the mindset about current training efforts, since modeling and simu lation will be the only way that F-35 capa bilities can be tested and assessed. That assessment is essential, since the F-35 program has continued to grow to become the largest weapon system acquisition in the history of the Department of Defense and for Coalition partners.
“To make this work, we have to leverage simulation differently in these weapons systems than we have in the past, especially for some training that we
Above NAWCTSD MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter training projects are worth in excess of $200 million.
Image credit: Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Aja B. Jackson/ US Navy.
do not want to execute live,” Burlingame stressed. “We have to change our mindset and conduct training in an operational-rele vant environment, and put a little sweat in our training.”
While the Services’ training commands have always encouraged the MS&T industry to come up with innovative solutions to train ing problems, there was more emphasis on that message at this year’s TSIS. Some of that request for help simply comes from the pressing need to modernize training, while it was made clear that more traditional methods will simply not be accepted.
To help encourage industry to come up with such nextgeneration solutions, some commands are providing more com petitive contract offerings. Brian Hicks, NAWCTSD Aviation Pro grams Program Director, provided some good news to that effect. The majority of his division’s 32 program offerings this year are competitive rather than sole source for the first time since he has been director, he noted. “I am excited about this,” Hicks stated.
As a part of its modernization efforts, the Army’s Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training and Instrumentation (PEO STRI) will be setting up an Industry Collaboration Day at Tech Grove to help industry better understand how the organiza tion plans to achieve this goal.
Col. Nick Kioutas, Project Lead for PEO STRI’s Synthetic Environment directorate, told the TSIS audience that the Army especially needs industry help in developing training for multidomain operations. “As we focus on modernization, we are looking at the threat of our near-peers and how do we train for multi-domain operations,” Kioutas said. “This is something that we have not done before, as this is a new Army doctrine that has not been finalized yet. We need new technology to train for multi-domain operations, and we need everyone’s help to get it here today.”
Kioutas also called for industry help in developing next-gen eration constructive simulation that will be called Echelon Above Brigade.
“We want you to engage with us and ask what contract opportunities should we have, rather than what contract oppor tunities do we have,” he emphasized. “We are also looking at a modular open system approach, featuring all of the best-of-breed technology. And we want industry to focus on their core com petencies to integrate into that open architecture. What we are looking to do is to put out an RFI to enable this, and we want wide industry approaches as opportunities for competition. I don’t just want an ID/IQ. I want industry to tell me there is a better way.”
While all of the training organizations presenting at the TSIS stressed the need for internal and external training moderniza tion, Karen Saunders, Program Executive Officer for PEO STRI, described an overall enterprise approach for all of its live, virtual and constructive training programs that will enable better col laboration with the modeling and simulation industry. A key ele ment of this effort will be an open architecture and open systems approach to its acquisition processes, she said.
“We have recently established the Acquisition Academy, but more importantly, we are looking to create a centralized Opera tions Center hub with 24/7 capability,” Saunders summarized.
This new capability will reduce opera tional overhead and consolidate all of our operations into a single process, includ ing the consolidation of all of our labs. This effort will also improve collaboration with industry and our other partners. We also will be collaborating with the Uni versity of Central Florida in a new part nership that will be called Partnership 6.”
NAWCTSD Cross-Warfare Programs Director Robin Wieckhorst said that the largest Navy contract, the competi tive five-year, $1.3 billion Fielded Train ing Systems Support (FTSS) V contract, would be awarded in August this year. Some of the sizable offerings anticipated under Lot 1 of this new contract include the competitive 5-year, $180 million Chief of Naval Air Training (CNATRA) Contrac tor Instructional Services contract, and the $180 million Navigation Seamanship & Shiphandling Trainer ID/IQ, both with an RFP this August. A later large-scale competitive contract is the 5-year, $100 million USMC Training Systems Contrac tor and Maintenance Services contract, with an RFP in the second quarter of 2025.
Robert Wolfinger, Project Lead for PEO STRI’s TADSS Support Operations, provided his organization’s plan for the next iteration of the Army’s Warfighter Readiness Solutions (Warfighter TRS) 10-year, estimated $3-to-5 billion com petitive contract. A draft RFP is currently scheduled for the third quarter of Fiscal Year 2023, with a currently estimated
Above Paratroopers conduct simulated missions at Fort Bragg using the Dismounted Soldier Training System VR environment.
Image Credit: US Army.
contract award date between 3QFY24 and the second quarter of FY25. The uncertainty of the actual contract award date is to allow enough time to properly transition activity from the old contract to the new contract without any prob lems, Wolfinger explained.
Lt.Col. Marcus Reynolds, Program Manager for Training Systems, Marine Corps Systems Command (PMTRASYS), cited the Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. David Berger as saying that the Corps “lacks the necessary modern simulators to sustain training readiness.” He also provided an overview of the Marine Corps Force Design 2030 plan ning guidance document, and an update
to the progress of the service’s Live, Vir tual, and Constructive Training Environ ment known as Project Tripoli. Col. Timothy Beers, Commander of the Air Force Agency for Modeling and Simulation (AFAMS), called for what he termed a “training overmatch,” where better-trained US airmen would have the advantage over any adversary that might employ aircraft that were equal to those flown by the Air Force. He also encour aged industry and academic partners to develop training scenarios that are Joint and Coalition-holistic, models that are timely, operationally relevant and realis tic, and to embrace data-centricity.
Jude Tomasello, Program Manager forthe Medical Simulation and Training Pro gram Management Office for the Defense Health Agency, described how his office is supporting the application of modeling and simulation technologies to the field of medicine across the Department of Defense. He also announced two new contract opportunities, the 5-year, $19 million Complicated Obstetric Emergen cies Simulation System (COES2), and the $10-to-18 million Interoperable Network ing for Training, Readiness and Education (INTRAMED) competitive contracts. The RFP for COES2 is scheduled for release during the first quarter of FY23, while the INTRAMED RFP is planned for the third quarter of that year. mst
Sole source, International, Awarded and Imminent Award Contracts not listed. Contracts listed in the order they were presented at TSIS 2022, i.e. by program manager’s office.
Contract Est. Value RFP Date Award Contact
Warfighter Training Readiness Solutions 3-5B 3Q/FY23 3Q/FY24 TADSS Support Ops
ARCENT Training Services Support 40M 3Q/FY22 3Q/FY23 TADSS Support Ops Test & Evaluation Science & Technology - multi-awards 2-50M 4Q/FY22 3Q/FY24 Cyber, Test, Training Bridge to Evolutionary STE TESS Multiple Awards 300M 1Q/FY23 2Q/FY23 PM Soldier Training CTC and Home Station Aviation Force-on-Force 150M 2Q/FY23 1Q/FY24 PM Soldier Training Live Targetry, Ranges, and CTCs (LTRaC) 500M 3Q/FY22 1Q/FY23 PM Soldier Training Basic Electronics Maintenance Trainer (BEMT-III) 35M 4Q/FY22 3Q/FY23 PM Soldier Training Digital Range Training System (DRTS) 11M 1Q/FY23 2Q/FY23 PM Soldier Training Computer-Based Instructional Development (CBID III) 50M 4Q/FY22 3Q/FY23 PM Soldier Training Mobile Protected Firepower Precision Gunnery Trainer TBD 1Q/FY23 2Q/FY23 PM Soldier Training
Contract Est. Value RFP Date Award Contact
Cargo Offload Discharge System 23M April 23 1Q/FY24 robin.wieckhorst@navy.mil
Product Line Management ID/IQ TBD 4Q/FY24 3Q/FY25 robin.wieckhorst@navy.mil
LVC Integrated Training Systems 50M 1Q/FY24 2Q/FY25 robin.wieckhorst@navy.mil
Battle Stations 21 Sustainment 50M 1Q/FY25 3Q/FY25 robin.wieckhorst@navy.mil
Software Maintenance of Fielded Training Systems 60M 2Q/FY22 4Q/FY22 robin.wieckhorst@navy.mil
Naval Aviation Technical Training Center COMS/SIS 30M May 2022 Nov 2022 robin.wieckhorst@navy.mil
Chief of Naval Air Training (CNATRA) CIS 180M Aug 2022 Jan 2023 robin.wieckhorst@navy.mil
Centrifuge-Based Environment Training 4M Sep 2022 Jan 2023 robin.wieckhorst@navy.mil
Western Pacific (WESTPAC) COMS/CIS 20M Aug 2022 Feb 2023 robin.wieckhorst@navy.mil
RESFOR COMS/CIS 24M Nov 2022 3Q/FY23 robin.wieckhorst@navy.mil
Software Maintenance of Fielded Training Systems 75M Jan 2023 4Q/FY23 robin.wieckhorst@navy.mil
Firefighter Training Structures & Props 5M Mar 2023 4Q/FY23 robin.wieckhorst@navy.mil
Navy Helo COMS/CIS 85M 4Q/FY23 2Q/FY24 robin.wieckhorst@navy.mil
Diversified Aircrew Readiness Training System (DARTS) 15M 1Q/FY24 3Q/FY24 robin.wieckhorst@navy.mil
E-6B COMS/CIS 20M 2Q/FY24 4Q/FY24 robin.wieckhorst@navy.mil
E-2 COMS/CIS 28M 3Q/FY24 1Q/FY25 robin.wieckhorst@navy.mil
Navy Introductory Flight Evaluation (NIFE) 21M 3Q/FY24 2Q/FY25 robin.wieckhorst@navy.mil
Navy Aviation Survival Training Program COMS/CIS 5M 4Q/FY24 2Q/FY25 robin.wieckhorst@navy.mil
Contract Est. Value RFP Date Award Contact
Pilot and Aircrew Courseware R&A Strike Fighter E&W 27M July 2022 Dec 2022 robin.wieckhorst@navy.mil
<<
Pilot and Aircrew Courseware R&A Navy Helo 11M 4Q/FY24 1Q/FY25 robin.wieckhorst@navy.mil
Pilot and Aircrew Courseware R&M Maritime 18M May 2022 Dec 2022 robin.wieckhorst@navy.mil
Pilot and Aircrew Courseware R&M E-2/C-2/LSO 8M 3Q/FY25 1Q/FY26 robin.wieckhorst@navy.mil
Pilot and Aircrew Courseware R&M USN/USMC 12M 3Q/FY26 1Q/FY27 robin wieckhorst@navy.mil
Command Aircraft Crew Training CACT C-20G 2M Mar 2023 4Q/FY23 robin.wieckhorst@navy.mil
CACT UC-12 12M 1Q/FY24 4Q/FY24 robin.wieckhorst@navy.mil
CACT C-37A 2M 2Q/FY24 4Q/FY24 robin.wieckhorst@navy.mil
CACT C-26D 3M 1Q/FY25 3Q/FY25 robin.wieckhorst@navy.mil
CACT C-40 Maintenance 5M 3Q/FY25 2Q/FY26 robin.wieckhorst@navy.mil
MH-60R/S Systems Config & Air Wing Integration ID/IQ 100M Jun 2022 2Q/FY23 brian.hicks@navy.mil
MH-60R/S Tactical Operations Flight Trainer (TOFT) 20M 4Q/FY23 2Q/FY24 brian.hicks@navy.mil
MH-60R/S Airborne Mine Countermeasures Upgrade 4.5M 3Q/FY23 2Q/FY24 brian.hicks@navy.mil
MH-60R/S Mission Rehearsal Trainer 11M 4Q/FY23 2Q/FY24 brian.hicks@navy.mil
Mh-60R/S Technology Refresh ID/IQ 80M 3Q/FY24 2Q/FY25 brian.hicks@navy.mil
CNATRA Multi-Engine Training System Ground-Based Training System Sims TBD April 2023 2Q/FY24 brian.hicks@navy.mil
CNATRA Multi-Engine Training System Ground-Based Courseware TBD Sep 2022 Dec 2022 brian.hicks@navy.mil
F-5 Tech Refresh 7M Jun 2022 Sept 2022 brian.hicks@navy.mil
F/A-18 C/D Simulated Aircraft Maintenance Training Upgrade 4M May 2022 Sep 2022 brian.hicks@navy.mil
Surface Contractor Operation and Maintenance Services 75M 4Q/FY23 2Q/FY24 paul.honold@navy.mil
Aegis Ashore Team Trainer Onsite Support Services 16.5M 3Q/FY22 1Q/FY23 paul.honold@navy.mil
Navigation Seamanship Shiphandling Contractor Instructional Services 65M 3Q/FY24 1Q/FY25 paul.honold@navy.mil
Ship to Shore Connector (SSC) Training System 33M TBD TBD paul.honold@navy.mil
Ship to Shore Connector Maintenance Training System 8M TBD TBD paul.honold@navy.mil
Navigation Seamanship & Ship Handling Trainer IDIQ 180M Aug 2022 Aug 2023 paul.honold@navy.mil
FFG-62 Surface Navigation Seamanship Shiphandling Trainer TBD 1Q/FY24 3Q/FY24 paul.honold@navy.mil
FFG-62 Single Crew Gap Curriculum & Blue & Gold
Crew World of Work (WoW) Analysis TBD 2Q/FY23 3Q/FY23 paul.honold@navy.mil
7M/11M Rigid Inflatable Boat Coxswain Sim Trainer TBD TBD TBD paul.honold@navy.mil
Multi-Mission Tactical Trainer (MMTT) Refresh 6M Apr 2023 Jun 2023 paul.honold@navy.mil
LCS Integrated Tactical Trainer ID/IQ TBD Oct 2022 May 2023 paul.honold@navy.mil
Integrated Tactical Trainer (ITT) Upgrade to L&S TBD Oct 2022 May 2022 paul.honold@navy.mil
Virtual Ship Training System Virtual Reality Labs
Tech Library & Haptics Lab Hardware Tech Refresh 4M Mar 2023 May 2023 paul.honold@navy.mil
LCS Mission Modules (MM) Courseware TBD TBD TBD paul.honold@navy.mil
LCS Bridge Part Task Trainers (BPTT) TBD 4Q/FY23 3Q/FY24 paul.honold@navy.mil
ITT IDIQ DO#1-Upgrade to L&S 35M 1Q/FY23 3Q/FY23 paul.honold@navy.mil
STAVENET Virtual Ship Training System (VSTS) 5M 4Q/FY23 2Q/FY24 paul.honold@navy.mil
Naval Expeditionary Combat Command Crane Trainer 2M 1Q/FY22 2Q/FY22 paul.honold@navy.mil
Advanced Computer Training Systems FY23 TBD FY23 FY23 paul.honold@navy.mil
Contract
Est. Value RFP Date Award Contact
C/KC130T T-56 Series 3.5 Engine Upgrade Training 4.5M 2Q/FY24 4Q/FY24 brian.hicks@navy.mil
USMC Training Device Modernization Program 60M Jun 2022 Dec 2022 brian.hicks@navy.mil
Multi-Station Disorientation Demonstration Tech Ref. 2M 2Q/FY25 2Q/FY26 brian.hicks@navy.mil
Flight Surface Control Trainers 1M Jun 2025 2Q/FY24 brian.hicks@navy.mil
Aircraft Jet Ignition System Trainers 350K 1Q/FY24 3Q/FY24 brian.hicks@navy.mil
Aircraft Basic Electronics System Trainers 250K 1Q/FY24 4Q/FY24 brian.hicks@navy.mil
Contract
Est. Value RFP Date Award Contact
Complicated Obstetrics Emergency Simulation System 19M 1Q/FY23 2Q/FY23 jude.m.tomasello.civ@mail.mil
Interoperable Networking for Training, Readiness and Education in Medicine (INTRAMED) Contract 10M 3Q/FY23 1Q/FY24 jude.m.tomasello.civ@mail.mil
In June 2021, Omega was among the first military conferences in the UK to break the Covid mould, eschew the Zoom option, take advantage of a lull between lockdowns and go live. This was a pretty gutsy move, given the risks at the time, and the organisers were rewarded by a good attendance, albeit travel from overseas was still very much restricted. This year, MS&T’s Dim Jones is happy to report, those constraints had been lifted, and the conference attracted well over 150 delegates
The second Omega Air-Land Integration Conference (for merly the Close Air Support Con ference) took place at Wroughton in Wilt shire in September.
Last year I reported the change in the conference title reflecting the end of the Afghanistan and Iraq Counter-Insur gency (COIN) era, and the rebranding of the sponsoring office from the Joint Air-Land Organisation to the Joint Air Liaison Organisation (See MS&T Issue 4/2021 -After Helmand:Air-Land Integra tion). If there was a recognition then that COIN was in the rear-view mirror, but also some uncertainty as to what came next, the events of 24 February 2022 and subsequent developments have served to demonstrate that what could come next is Large-Scale Combat Operations (LSCO). This realisation has lent a degree of urgency to doctrinal deliberation which perhaps was lacking and, in a few short months, provided enough lessons already learned to suggest that the para digm shift needed to be accelerated and, in some cases, the objectives modified.
If it were needed, the necessary stim ulus to conference debate was injected by Commander JALO, Colonel Bill Bolam, who did more than chair or moderate pro ceedings; rather, he infused them with direction and purpose. He did this firstly
by making evident his own enthusiasm for the task and, secondly, by demonstrating an encyclopaedic grasp of his brief at all levels, as evidenced by his responses to questions directed at him, and by framing discussion with other speakers.
In his opening remarks, Col Bolam acknowledged the con ference’s former emphasis on Forward Air Control (FAC) and Joint Terminal Air Control (JTAC) operations and suggested that, while professional excellence in these areas should be, and was being, maintained, the focus should now shift to higherlevel ALI functions, such as the Air Support Operations Centre (ASOC), Joint Air Ground Integration Centre (JAGIC) and the effective deployment of suitably manned Tactical Air Control Parties (TACP) at all tactical levels.
The transformation from COIN to LSCO requires cultural, doc trinal and organisational change, and the delegates were able to hear the views of some key commanders and executives at 1* and 2* level who are tasked with driving these changes: the Chief of Staff of the UK-based Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC), who is the UK lead on ALI; the Deputy Director Cyber and C4 from the US Joint Staffs; the Senior Responsible Officer (SRO) for Joint Effects at UK Army HQ; and the Air Officer Commanding 11 Group RAF, which incorporates the Air Battle Staff and the deployable Joint Force Air Component (JFAC). We also heard from the first com mander of the UK’s recently formed Deep Recce Strike Brigade Combat Team (DRS BCT).
These gentlemen are united in their view that effective ALI is an essential ingredient of successful LSCO, and a prerequisite for multi-domain operations. They are focused on making ALI work, which is not as easy as it sounds; as the saying goes, ‘If ALI was easy, we’d have done it by now’. However, it would appear that certain elements of ALI are, if not easy, not impossible either, yet we still haven’t done it.
Chief among these is communication, both within and
An AH64 Apache
while deployed to RAFO Musannah as part of Ex PINION OMAN 21.
Image credit: UK MOD/Crown Copyright/SAC Charlotte Hopkins. Opposite British Army Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTAC) practice low-level skills by day and night, pictured here in Kenya.
Image credit: UK MOD/Crown Copyright/Cpl Wakefield.
Above
conducts dust landings
between tactical HQs, and between them and the front line. By 1942 and the war in the Western Desert – arguably the birthplace of ALI – communication between land forces and aircraft had at least progressed from the Morse code and signal lights of World War I to twoway radio comms, but thereafter devel opment has been patchy. Much progress has been made in equipment – such as laser target marking, video downlink and accurate target coordinates – since my own FAC days in the late 60s, lugging my heavyweight radio, fluorescent marker panels and binos through muddy fields to some imagined high ground. The air craft have also morphed from Spitfire to F-35, but the primary means of commu nication between JTAC and CAS aircraft remains voice.
We have been talking about Digitally Assisted CAS (DACAS) for as long as I have been attending these conferences, but we still aren’t fully embracing it. Not only is voice easily jammable, but it is far too slow – and this criticism is not con fined to CAS. One of the principal les sons to come out of Ukraine is that tacti cal agility is critical; the Ukrainians have developed it, and the numerically superior Russian forces have not demonstrated the flexibility to counter it – but they will learn. Accuracy and safety – the reasons why voice comms have survived so long –are still required, but speed has assumed much greater significance.
In a fast-moving battle, and in order to get inside the opponent’s decision cycle, rapid dissemination and sharing of data is essential, and that means digital. This applies equally to rapid tactical reaction – ‘whack-a-mole’ warfare, as exemplified by counter-battery operations – but also to more intelligent operations designed to disrupt the enemy’s medium- and longerterm plans to support the contact battle. The transition from CAS to ALI is further rendered critical by changes in the nature of air and land operations: specialist CAS and Battlefield Air Interdiction (BAI) air craft have (with the exception of the US’s A-10s) largely disappeared from NATO inventories, to be replaced by more sophis ticated crewed and uncrewed platforms employing long-range Precision Guided Munitions (PGM); the range and accuracy of artillery equipment have increased, and
the depth battle could be prosecuted any where from one to one hundred km from the Forward Line of Own Troops (FLOT); and reconnaissance and target identifica tion are increasingly being carried out by remotely piloted or autonomous systems, rather than the human eyeball, whether airborne or ground-bound. It is in this environment that the concept of the DRS BCT has evolved.
This conference audience was the usual mix of military and industry, although I sensed that the balance of employment for the military attendees has shifted from the front line (JTAC and FAC) towards ALI practitioners in higher formations. There was a commensurate change of emphasis in the wares being promoted by industry from individual equipment to higher-level communica tions and services. This is not to say, how ever, that advances in JTAC/FAC equip ment are not important, particularly when they enable DACAS. The view of at least one former serviceman, now in industry, was that the military already has, or has been offered, much equipment which would enable better ALI, but some of it is being used badly, and some not at all. This reinforces the need for continued threeway conversation between provider, cus tomer and user.
Just as JTAC/FAC equipment remains key, so does training, both indi vidual and collective, and both synthetic and live. We heard how the UK Army’s Collective Training Transformation Pro
gramme (CTTP) and the RAF’s Gladiator Programme, part of Defence Operational Training Capability (DOTC) (Land) and (Air) respectively, will enable higher-level training, while simulators are assuming an increased role in both initial qualification and continuation individual training. The recent declaration of FOC for the Army’s Interim Combined Arms Virtual Simulator (Deployable) (ICAVS(D), part of CTTP, is a significant milestone, as is the installation of the Joint Fires Synthetic Trainer (JFST) at the Joint Forward Air Control Training and Support Unit (JFACTSU), both prod ucts of Elbit Systems UK. However, the retirement this year of the RAF and RN’s Hawk T1 aircraft has temporarily deprived the JTAC community of dedicated live air support, and my own experience of fly ing the Hawk in support of JFACTSU as a ‘guest act’ persuades me that this is not a role one can perform well without con stant practice.
In this regard, the conference was entertained and informed by a presenta tion from Blue Air Training, a US-based company who do nothing but JTAC train ing, both on the ground and in the air. Their experienced ex-military aviators use A-90 Raider, Pilatus PC-9 and OV-10 Bronco aircraft and, by practised and skil ful use of profiles and communications, emulate multiple operators in almost any type of support aircraft you care to name. As their CEO remarked: “You don’t have to be a duck; you just have to quack”. Happily, the UK will not have to do its own quacking; following a tender and open competition process, the UK JALO /JFACTSU is now on contract with Blue Air Training, and will conduct the live element of JTAC initial training using Contract CAS in the US, through an FMS arrangement with the USAF.
In sum, this well-attended and -organised conference was both informa tive and enjoyable, not just for practition ers of the ALI art, but also for those on the fringes. Not much good has come out of the war in Ukraine, but if it concentrates the minds of those who are driving this capability forward, it will have served a useful purpose. It is encouraging that the key players in this endeavour appear to know and respect each other; their con certed efforts will be required to drive this essential capability forward.
Excerpted from the forthcoming book, ‘All But Flying is Simulation – The Illustrated History of Flight Simulation’, by former MS&T Editor and Senior Correspondent Walter F. Ullrich. Additional excerpts will be featured in the coming months on www.halldale.com.
Ivisited Airbus Training in Tou louse, France in August 2007 to gather material for an article about this extraordinary flight training facil ity. My official focus was on the freshly installed A380 training component, as well as the future training for the A400M transporter aircraft, but I must confess that I was even more fascinated by a strange looking wooden assembly in the entrance hall of the main building. Of course, I knew what was in front of me – I had seen it before on some vin tage photos. It was a faithful copy of the legendary “Antoinette Barrel”, probably the world’s first flight simulator that truly deserved this designation.
The device on display at Airbus is extremely accurate and detailed; photos alone would not have been sufficient to achieve such a realistic reproduction. But what was the template? Since the original is presumably lost, the original design drawings only could have been the source.
In 2014, I had the good luck to come into contact with Jean Pinet, a real heav yweight in French aviation: aerospace engineer, fighter pilot, airline pilot, test pilot, PhD in psychology-ergonomics and since 1965 member of the Concorde flight test team with Sud Aviation. In 1972, he
founded Aeroformation, the independent Airbus Industries train ing centre, which later became Airbus Training. In Pinet’s day, the centre was earmarked to provide high-quality flight training for the most recent airplane developments. Being a historically conscious person, Pinet wanted to set up on the premises a com pelling testimonial of French involvement in early flight training. “As I started myself with that complete challenging European project in the seventies, with sophisticated Concorde and A300 simulators, I decided to display the first flight simulator in the world!” Pinet explains.
And this simulator was the Antoinette Barrel!
He asked and received, from the Museum of Air and Space in Le Bourget, drawings and old photos, and had the simulator built at a local enterprise. Unfortunately, Monsieur Pinet, at the time I questioned him, could no longer recall the name of the carpenter, to whom the work had been entrusted. Nor did he remember if the borrowed drawings had been returned to the museum at all.
My further enquiry at the museum revealed that photos and illustrations of the Training Barrel still exist; the drawings, how ever, were untraceable. Could it be that the original work draw ings of the world’s first simulator are now buried somewhere in the back drawer of a Toulouse carpentry workshop?
By the way, in 2016 Airbus donated the beautiful remake of the Antoinette Barrel to Aeroscopia, a newly set-up aeronautical museum in Blagnac near the Airbus facility.
When the Antoinette VII aeroplane appeared in the spring of 1909, it was the largest and heaviest of the monoplanes of its time. Richard Harris, a contemporary aviation expert, praised it for “its performances under adverse conditions, and for its
Opposite Replica of the Antoinette Barrel at the Airbus training facility in Toulouse, France. Image credit: Walter F. Ullrich.
Above Alexandre Laffont in the world’s first flight simulator, the Antoinette Barrel. Image credit: L'Aérophile.
“…Student pilots… requested a training device”
inherent stability”. The Antoinette was the result of a cooperation between the factory owner Jules Gastambide and Léon-MarieJoseph-Clement Levavasseur, craftsman, engineer and inventor; for example, Levavasseur patented the first V-8 engine. Since 1903 both men had fiddled together about flight machines and engines for aeroplanes – not too successfully.
The situation improved when, in 1906, Capitaine Ferdinand Ferber joined the company as engineer and technical adviser. Frustrated by the lack of support from the hierarchy, he had taken a 3-years leave from the army. In February 1909, Hubert Latham, a millionaire’s son and distant cousin of Gastambide, joined the team as pilot. Both talented and reckless, Latham almost became the first to cross the Channel – before Louis Blériot. Unfortunately, the engine of his Antoinette failed some miles off the coast. Over all, it is true to say that Ferber and Latham brought knowhow and glamour to the Antoinette Company.
During its life cycle, the Antoinette aeroplane underwent a number of modifications and improvements. The undercarriage was amended several times. The most important change, how ever, affected lateral control. While the older types still had ailer ons, from the Antoinette VII in 1909 onwards, the airplanes were equipped upon delivery with the more effective wing-warping technology. In the course of this modification, the steering wheels on the left and the right side of the pilot’s seat were increased in diameter, which allowed a better handling. Lateral control was obtained by using the left wheel; the elevator was activated with the right control wheel. Change of direction, which in the Antoi nette V still was attained by turning a third wheel – also on the left side – was now done with the feet by pressing a horizontal rudder bar in front of the pilot.
Richard Harris, a contemporary aviation expert, described the Antoinette as one of the easiest airplanes of all for the beginner in aviation. “With as few as five lessons many pupils have become qualified pilots, even winning prizes against competitors of much wider experience”, he wrote. However, this assessment cannot be the result of his own experience, probably he only passed on the promotion of the manufacturer.
In reality, the opposite was true – it took a lot of getting used to steer the machine! Turning the left wheel in the fore and aft direction for left and right side movements, and simultaneously rotating the right control wheel for the up-and-down movement was obviously not a natural sense. Potential customers were enthusiastic about the elegance of the graceful plane, but dis couraged by the complex and not very intuitive flight control system.
Eventually it was student pilots, Major Georges Clolus and Lieutenant Pierre Clavenad, who requested a training device that would develop their senses and reflexes to move the control wheels the right way at the right time, on safe ground. Clavenad had been seconded by the French army to the Antoinette Flying School, while Clolus was there to acquire a pilot license at his own expense.
On the initiative of the two officers, the Antoinette Company started building a rather peculiar training device, which was later called the “Antoinette Barrel”. In some publications, the name of a third military officer is still circulating as a co-inventor, a certain Commandant (Alex) Laffont. Even the label that was placed next
to the simulator in the Airbus training lobby specifically named this officer. However, something has got mixed up over the years. None of the volumes of the French magazine L’Aérophile of the years 1909-1910 that list virtually all graduates from French flight schools shows any Commandant (or Major) Laffont.
In reality, the person is Alexandre Laffont, an engineer from the Antoinette Company. Laffont, graduate of the School of Arts and Crafts of Aix-en-Provence, who had been with Antoinette Flying School from its beginnings in February 1909. Like many other members of the Antoinette staff, Laffont had to learn flying for subsequent employment as a flight instructor.
He had started his training as pilot together with the two officers, and now, based on his own experiences, and the input of his fellow students, he designed and assembled a practicable flight instruction instrument. The officers insisted on a fast solu tion, to be realized on a best-effort basis, and using the means that were at hand. It was Major Clolus who came up with the idea to use a barrel cut into two.
Thus, within weeks only, Laffont put together the world's first “Flight Simulator” that actually deserved this designation. His work is all the more praiseworthy, since he had no model for it. His archetype of training device is, in principle, still valid today; the only difference – he used muscles for motion, whereas nowadays we apply hydraulic or electric power!
Alexandre Laffont’s role as inventor of the training barrel as well as his position at the Antoinette Flying School has fre quently been overlooked, most probably because of his speedy but very short career. In June 1910, he earned his pilot licence; only a month later he was promoted to chief instructor – his pre decessor Charles Wachter had died in a plane crash. Yet, the tal ented test pilot and flight engineer met the same fate only some months later – he fatally crashed in December 1910. The photo showing Laffont sitting in the cockpit of the Antoinette Barrel appeared in the French magazine, Lectures pour tous, in January
1911 – three weeks after his death. The caption explicitly names him as inventor of the Antoinette Barrel.
The Training Barrel that Laffont had con ceived consisted of two half barrels on top of each other. On the upper one was the pilot’s seat with a steering wheel on either side, identical to those of the real aeroplane. They served to control pitch and roll. To swivel in yaw, the trainee pressed his feet on a rudder bar. In front of him was a reference bar, which he was required to line up with the horizon. The bottom half barrel, on which the whole system rested, was in a state of unsta ble balance. It was mounted on a swivel head and moved in pitch, roll and yaw by three instructors, one for each axis, with the help of long rods. These move ments represented the disturbances the pilot would encounter in the air. In order to stabilize the flight, the trainee had to counter-steer immediately with the right amount of force. Thus, he gradually got familiar with the delicate manoeuvres required for flying the Antoinette mono plane.
Actual training with the barrel started in May 1910; and it was not only the French officers who benefited from the training tool! An article titled “Con quering a pilot's licence” gives some insight into how pilot training functioned in those early years. As an average, it took three months of training to obtain a pilot licence. In 1910, the Antoinette Flying School in Mourmelon utilised two two-seater training aircraft. This was barely sufficient for the 22 flight students that were, for example, registered at the school in October 1910. Flying hours were in great demand. And, although the flight instructor flew from dawn to dusk almost uninterruptedly, demand regularly exceeded resources. It was the Antoinette director, Jules Gastambide, who allocated the live flying training hours to the pilot aspirants.
It seems that the training barrel was a well-accepted exercise tool to fill the gaps between real flying hours. Another photo shows the instructors giving a good shaking to the novice sitting in the simulator. The caption reads: Turn Over
Station! But it was not just joking. The flight student learned how to deal with the extreme flying conditions: “In real life, he might experience even worse,” explained one flight instructor. This image, to my knowledge, is the only one that shows the Training Barrel in motion, demonstrating its extraordinary freedom of movement.
At the end of this chapter, one ques tion still remains. Why did they install into the Antoinette aircraft such a com plicated control? In his book, “Build ing Aeroplanes for Those Magnificent Men", published in 1965, Air Commodore Allen H. Wheeler gives an explanation. Wheeler worked with the crew of the "Those Magnificent Men in Their Fly ing Machines" movie and was involved in building and flying replicas of five historical airplanes, among them the Antoinette. “One of the errors made in constructing the Antoinette replica lay in using a normal 'joystick' control lever for the lateral control,” he writes. Very rapidly the engineers responsible for the replica returned to using the large control wheel and the small drum, irreversibly winding and unwinding the cables that controlled the warping of the wings – it just proved to be safer.
And this is how it worked. Around a drum that was fixed on the same axis as the steering wheel, a cable was wrapped. When the wheel was turned, the two ends of the cable wound and unwound, and, via a lever mechanism, rotated a cogwheel. The gear in turn, moved a chain from one side to the other, thus pulling downwards one outer wing portion, while it allowed the other to rise. A clockwise rotation of a steering wheel resulted in a control deflection to the left or up.
The Antoinette control system still had another advantage. Due to its “irre versibility”, the control always remained in the last position, allowing the pilot to release his hand from the lateral control wheel to do other jobs. Moreover, exter nal influences such as gusts had less direct impact on the control mechanism. An anecdote reports that in 1909, during a sales campaign for the Antoinette in Berlin, Hubert Latham proved the sim plicity and safety of his flying machine by letting both hands off the steering wheels to light cigarettes or to take photographs.
Incidentally, Wheeler also found the probable cause for some fatal crashes, including that of Laffont. Several Antoi nettes had lost their wings in the air, following a phenomenon that in the old days had been described as 'trampling'. In fact it was a runaway of the lateral warping control that happened in gusty conditions, when the control cables were not tight enough. If “trampling” continued too long it could finally result in a collapse of the rigging and loss of wings. Better pre-flight checks in order to prevent the control cables to get slack would have solved the problem.
Despite everything, the Antoinette wasn’t that bad an aircraft. Yet, the con trol of the bird was definitely an engi neer’s solution – not that of an aviator!
From Wheeler’s point of view it was very reasonable that back in 1910 the designer had found it advisable to provide a 'flight simulator' for the students. Alexandre Laffont, the inventor of the Training Bar rel, certainly would not have imagined that his device, which was virtually born out of an acute need, should become the first landmark in flight simulation. mst
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