Mission Training through Distributed Simulation as Envisaged by HQ Strike Command

摘要

In the not-too-distant past, the RAF had ready access to a real cockpit and enough airspace in which to practise the majority of wartime tactics. Flight simulators were unable to emulate the aircraft or the operating environment with sufficient fidelity and hence training was restricted to basic cockpit tasks such as drills and emergency procedures. Technology, an instinctive love for all aviators, advanced at breathtaking pace in the 80s and 90s, but for those who have 'slipped the surly bonds of earth and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings', a mere simulator was perhaps not quite where they wished to see the most dramatic advances. However, a new vision has been borne out of the Coalition Mission Training Research (CMTR) programme and UK Mission Training through Distributed Simulation (MTDS) is becoming a reality. The recent standup of the Air Battlespace Training Centre (ABTC) and the award of a Capability Concept Demonstrator (CCD) programme contract to Team ACTIVE 2 will allow the RAF to explore the Air Component requirements a step beyond the extant advanced synthetic systems for the Hawk T1, Tornado GR4, Hercules C-130J, and the Joint Helicopter Command's Medium Support Helicopter Aircrew Training Facility. These systems are used for linked training on a Local Area Network (LAN) and are taking significant risk out of the flying we do, better preparing us for the tasks faced, and even reducing the number of 'live-fly' hours, especially in advanced flying and conversion training. Aviation Training International Limited (AH 64) is the first UK military suite of synthetic training devices linked on a Wide Area Network (WAN) and the first to demonstrate the feasibility of linking live and synthetic military assets. The challenge for the future is to link these various simulators together to provide team, collective and joint combined collective training opportunities as required by our Forces. This could allow the Air Component to train with Coalition partners from all over the world, without leaving their home base, enabling them to fly and operate together under representative Command & Control arrangements. An aspiration is to go further than this and develop deployable simulators, capable of operating from Deployed Operating Bases or afloat. This future capability could go a long way towards retaining aircrew skill-sets irrespective of the constraints they may face once deployed at the start of a crisis. Simulation of the future should be designed to increase the operational capability of our aircrews. We must look at the training syllabi and consider what disciplines are better undertaken in the synthetic environment and those events that must be undertaken in the aircraft. This could ultimately lead to the synthetic/live balance changing from where it is today, perhaps significantly. By focusing on the military need, and adopting a sympathetic and user-centric approach, to all aspects of synthetic training design, the simulation revolution could lead to a transformation of training that should be welcomed by military aviators, allowing the synthetic environment to contribute to Strike Command's strategic end-state: 'Precise campaign effects, at range, in time'. With an air force that delivers all the self-evident and subtle meaning within that seemingly simple phrase, success in operations, whatever guise they may take in the future, will be more likely.