Command Profile: NAWCTSD
NAWCTSD is part of the Naval Air Systems Command, headquartered in Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Md. The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD), also located at Patuxent River, is the Florida organization’s immediate command.
Located in Orlando’s Central Florida Research Park, NAWCTSD employs about one thousand engineers, scientists and support personnel. Its location in central Florida gives the center the advantage of being co-located with other military training and simulation organizations, the University of Central Florida, and being near the center of the simulation-based entertainment industry.
The center’s advanced laboratories and highly skilled work force, working from this unrivaled technology base, continue to produce cutting- edge advances in training simulation and human performance. NAWCTSD awards an average of $850 million in contracts to simulation technology companies each year.
ORGANIZATION
NAWCTSD is commanded by Captain Harry Robinson, who brings to his assignment a rich mix of operational and shore-based management experience. Walt Augustin serves concurrently as technical director, NAWCTSD, and as director, Human Systems Department in the Naval Air Systems Command. An NAWCTSD organization chart is in an accompanying table.
MISSION
NAWCTSD serves as the principal Navy center for research, development, test and evaluation, acquisition and product support of training systems. The Warfare Center not only crafts simulation technologies for the Navy, but is often an integral part of simulation development for the Army, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard, as well as many federal, state and local agencies.
The Warfare Center provides a full range of innovative products and services that provide complete training solutions. This includes requirements analysis, design, development and full life cycle support. The organization provides continuous learning across a wide variety of applications including aviation, surface and undersea. NAWCTSD continually engages the warfighter to understand challenges, solve problems, create new capabilities, and integrate the science of learning with performance-based training to improve the performance of the warfighter.
Formed in 1941 as the nation’s first military simulation developer, NAWCTSD serves as the Navy’s Technical Center of Excellence in Research, Development, Acquisition, On-Site Testing and Sustainment of Training Solutions. These solutions are provided in four product lines:
Training Systems. This product line includes both the development of new training systems and modifications to existing ones.
Training Services. These consist of training courses, site surveys and support of fielded systems. Training Content. This includes both new training content and the modification of existing curriculums.
Intellectual Services. This broad product line includes front-end analysis, training system requirements analysis, training situation analysis, technical and operational analysis, mission support analysis, verification and validation analysis, modeling and simulation, mission capabilities study and analysis, patents, publications, specifications and prototypes, among others.
The five principal NAWCTSD Program Directorates are Aviation, Surface and Expeditionary Warfare, Undersea, Cross-Warfare and International Programs.
Aviation. The program director for Aviation Programs (PDA) manages Naval and Marine Corps aviation training programs, systems and products relating to the aviation weapon systems, platforms and environment, including aircraft, missiles, air traffic control, aviation systems, and other related systems, and provides support for aviation-related training provided by the Naval Education and Training Command (NETC) and its subordinate commands.
Surface and Expeditionary Warfare. The program director for Surface & Expeditionary Warfare Programs (PDS) manages training programs, systems and products relating to the Navy’s surface weapon systems, platforms and environment, including ships, ship systems, ship-launched missiles and munitions, and other related systems and supports surface-related training.
Undersea. The program director for Undersea (PDU) manages training programs, systems and products relating to undersea weapon systems, platforms and environment, including submarines, submarine systems, integrated undersea surveillance, deep submergence, and other related systems; the program director also supports undersea-related training provided by Naval Education and Training Command (NETC) and its subordinate commands.
Cross-Warfare. The program director for Cross Warfare Support Branch (PDX) manages training programs, systems, services and products related to individual training, joint services, cross and multiple warfare areas and non-Department of Defense systems and applications. Typical projects in this directorate are those supporting Naval Education and Training Command requirements, special operations, U.S. Joint Forces Command, and the modeling and simulation community. The directorate is often the incubator for emerging technologies or non-traditional training methodologies such as gaming and entertainment industry techniques.
International Programs. The program director for International Programs (PDI) provides the skills, resources, processes and references necessary to develop, plan, direct, negotiate and monitor the Defense Security Assistance Program; distributes policy guidance and standardized procedures; executes Foreign Military Sales (FMS) cases and monitoring programs for training systems and equipment sold to allies; coordinates foreign disclosure, export licensing and foreign visit requests; and assists the Navy International Program office.
Two recent NAWCTSD training systems illustrate the diverse capabilities of the organization:
KC-130J TRAINER
The KC-130J Weapons System Trainer (WST) was developed for the Marine Corps by NAWCTSD, in partnership with private industry.
The Marine’s KC-130J is a tanker and cargo aircraft derived from the C-130J HerculesII aircraft. It provides in-flight refueling for both fixed wing aircraft and helicopters, and can refuel two aircraft simultaneously.
The C-130J Hercules II series of aircraft, or “Super Hercules” as it’s sometimes called, incorporates state-of-the-art technology to reduce manpower requirements, operating costs, support requirements and life cycle costs over current C-130s. The J model also features improved maneuverability and handling and shorter runaway requirements for take-off and landing. New turboprop engines with six blades are one of the keys of the C-130J improved performance.
The KC-130J WST matches the new aircraft’s state-of-the-art electronic systems and vastly improved operational capabilities. The WST is a highly capable trainer that can simulate even the most difficult missions that pilots and crewmembers are likely to face.
In addition to pilot training on the new capabilities of the Super Hercules tanker, like more power and better handling, the trainer can put pilots through very complex and demanding air drop and refueling missions—without risk to aircrews and without the expense of actual operations.
The final delivery of such a sophisticated trainer requires close teamwork among a host of military and private industry players. During development of the KC-130J WST, as in many other training and simulation projects for aviation, NAWCTSD worked for NAVAIR’s Aviation Training Systems Program Manager (PMA-205), which oversees all such programs.
The prime contractor for the WST is Lockheed Martin, which subcontracted the development and manufacturing of the trainer to CAE USA in Tampa. Both private industry partners have significant training and simulation operations in Florida’s High Tech Corridor, a belt of technology-heavy industries reaching from Tampa on Florida’s west coast, through Orlando, to Cape Canaveral on the East.
BATTLE STATIONS 21
One of the most innovative training solutions ever seen also had its inception at NAWCTSD—the world’s largest military training simulator, the 210-foot-long USS Trayer. Developed under the project name of Battle Stations 21, the Trayer, which went into full training operations last summer, is notable for its extensive use of special effects often used by Orlando’s theme park industry. It is widely heralded as a pinnacle achievement of the cooperation between military and private industry training simulation developers.
An $83 million, three-quarter-size replica of a modern guidedmissile destroyer, built for the Navy’s Recruit Training Command at Great Lakes, Ill., the Trayer is housed inside its own 157,000 square-foot building. The ship replica is tied to a “pier” and “floats” in 90,000 gallons of water, complete with the odors of the sea and diesel fuel. When young sailors step onto the Trayer, computer programs and “immersion” special effects simulate a real ocean voyage, complete with shipboard motions, ocean sounds, engine noise and emergency situations.
Immersion special effects like smoke, heat, fire, water, motion and sound are often used at Disney World and Universal Studios to make an experience more realistic. For instance, a ride at Disney that takes a visitor “back in time” to see a prehistoric world complete with jungles and dinosaurs will use heat, steam, darkness, special lighting effects and recorded animal and reptile noises, along with the odor of sulfur to make the visitor feel like he has really traveled back in time.
In a similar way, the Trayer is equipped to prepare sailors for a wide variety of conditions that they may encounter on a ship, including explosions, fire and flooding of certain parts of the vessel. By using the same sort of immersion special effects, sailors are made to feel as though, for instance, the ship has suffered an explosion that has damaged its outer hull. Sailors will feel a giant jolt, and the ship will rumble, shake and vibrate. Real water will start to flood parts of the ship, and real flames will shoot out of walls and equipment.
All the while, audio speakers will blare the sounds associated with such an event, including explosions, men and women yelling orders, “injured” sailors screaming in simulated pain, and sirens, horns and mechanical noises.
While using special effects first used in the theme park industry, military developers are quick to point out that the Trayer was not built for fun, but to train the warfighter to survive and win any battle on the sea. By putting Naval recruits through 17 different battle and emergency scenarios on the Trayer, their ability to cope with such real-world conditions greatly improves.
Navy Commander Kirk Lippold, the captain of the USS Cole when it was attacked in Yemen in 2000, said after seeing the Trayer: “The training provided by Battle Stations 21 will give them those few precious seconds they will need to save their ship and shipmates. While dramatic in its visual appearance and realism, Battle Stations 21 accurately depicts the types of damage that can occur to a ship from an explosion. The importance of exposing sailors to that type of environment will give them the confidence to know they can respond to it and will be critical to their ability to sustain themselves in battle.”
As with most training systems projects, NAWCTSD partnered with other organizations in the development of Battle Stations 21, including Naval Facilities Engineering Command, McHugh Construction Co. of Chicago and several special effects companies.
I/ITSEC 2008
Training and simulation projects featured in NAWCTSD’s booth (# 2129) at I/ITSEC this year include:
Training Objectives & Performance Measures for Optimal Scenario- Based Training (TOPMOST), a suite of applications that ensures appropriate training opportunities and performance measures are available to support distributed simulation-based training events.
Interoperable ASW Training, including Anti-Submarine Warfare Virtual-At-Sea Training (ASW VAST) Mission Rehearsal Tactical Team Trainer (MRT3), the Effective Active Acoustic Simulation (EFAAS) Trainer and the Virtual ASW/ASUW Tactical Air Controller (VASTAC) Trainer.
Authoring Instructional Materials (AIM), a government-managed learning content authoring tool, used by the Navy and other agencies to develop, update, manage and integrate training content.
Quality of Training Effectiveness Assessment (QTEA), which focuses on the use of physiological and neurocognitive sensors to measure trainees’ performance within live, virtual and constructive simulations.
NAWCTSD continues its traditional strong ties with private industry and has been recognized for its commitment to engaging the small business community in the development of training systems. At I/ITSEC this year, a new NAWCTSD Products and Services Handbook will be available to industry partners. The handbook outlines the capabilities and business practices of the organization and provides helpful information for potential contractors.
THE FUTURE
The demand for future training and simulation system efforts is expected to increase in the foreseeable future due to demands on operational assets, service life extensions of the Navy’s combat weapon systems, and emerging training requirements from multiple operational combat theaters. As systems originally planned for retirement are extended in service, the command must also continue to introduce training solutions for future weapon systems.
As NAWCTSD maps the training solution horizon, we expect growing emphasis and effort in the area of unmanned combat systems employed in aviation, surface, expeditionary and undersea warfare. NAWCTSD expects to expand its support of distance training, persistent virtual environments and digital communications in support of strike group training. ♦