An Uptick in Growth
INCREASED CAPABILITIES AND APPLICABILITY FOR EXPANDING NAVY FLEETS HELP DRIVE AVIATORS’ DEMAND FOR PART-TASK TRAINERS
Part-task trainers (PTTs) are enjoying a resurgence of popularity in military aviation circles. While these devices continue to support training for air and maintenance crews assigned to fixed and rotary aircraft, an increased demand for PTTs is being driven by their utility for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and systems training.
The increased fidelity of these trainers is being enhanced by networking, software reuse, effective visual displays and other strategies.
VALUE OF PTTS
The term “part” remains one of the interesting misnomers in the training community. To many, the term conjures up an inferior or capability-limited device. Other service subject matter experts cannot provide a metric or percentage that establishes at what points a device becomes, or ceases to be, a PTT.
What is agreed upon is that PTTs remain a cost-effective solution for providing highly specialized devices that can be used to train to target tasks throughout the aviation community.
Diverse U.S. Air Force trainers include a C-5 Air refueling PTT which hones air refueling skills, fighter aircraft handson- throttle and stick (HOTAS) trainers, which give pilots the opportunity to gain proficiency manipulating their many functions without simulating flight, and a C-130J PTT, which is solely used to train loadmaster skills. The service also uses L-3 Communications’ Link Simulation & Training’s PTTs to support F-16 training. These trainers include Maintenance Training Devices (MTDs), one of which is the Simulated Aircraft Maintenance Trainer. The MTDs teach aircraft technicians specific actions to maintain the F-16.
From the U.S. Army’s perspective, the use of PTTs is mainly for maintenance training, pointed out Matthew Arnold, systems engineer, PEO Aviation, Systems Engineering, Training Aids Devices Simulators and Simulations (TADSS). “There are operator PTTs such as the AH-64A TADS Selected Tasks Trainer, but there are very few in the Aviation TADSS inventory,” he added.
PTTs generally are one part of a system training program.
“Although some PTTs have been bought under stand-alone procurements, this is not typical,” noted Tony DalSasso, chief systems engineer, U.S. Air Force’s 677th AESG/EN (Simulator Systems Group). He added, “More commonly PTTs are acquired as one component of a complete suite of trainers associated with a given platform. There are no stand-alone PTT procurements planned by the 677th in the near future.”
A number of PTT technology enhancements are being received at air squadrons around the globe.
HARDWARE INDEPENDENT
SimiGon provides PTTs which have hardware-independent software engines.
“In a way, we have reinvented the whole PTT concept for our customers,” said Ami Vizer, president and chief executive officer. The firm’s software engine allows it to partner with the company that best creates the hardware fidelity level the customer and task requires. Vizer added, “We don’t have a laundry list of high-fidelity and low-fidelity trainers from which someone can choose. Instead we provide the extensible software architecture and let our customers decide what the best hardware delivery method is to teach the skill, be it a laptop or a full cockpit mockup. It’s all the same software code to us.”
What does define a SimiGon PTT is the configuration of the hardware. While the company provides fully-functioning tactical training software packages, the configuration of the PCs, visual displays and cockpit setup determine if the trainer is a PTT, or even a Unit Level Trainer or a Mission and Weapon Training System.
The company’s offerings also provide a glimpse into other trends in contemporary PTTs— increasing fidelity, the use of standards and open architecture, and other attributes.
The firm’s strategies to bolster fidelity include honing a more capable artificial intelligence for its virtual instructor, taking advantage of PC-graphic card advancements and improved engine graphics engine so that cockpit displays and environmental effects look more realistic while not decreasing frame rates, and embedding operational flight profiles from the actual aircraft’s software systems into the simulation software.
SimiGon also optimizes open architecture, modular technology and standards— one of which is Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) version 2004.
“SCORM 2004 and a supporting learning management system for our PTTs provides our customers with simulation training as part of the comprehensive training environment that runs on the most advanced learning standards in the market,” asserted Vizer.
These and other company efforts have allowed the company’s PTTs to include “no compromise” weapons, sensors and threat environments in a software package capable of running on a single desktop PC or a laptop.
SimiGon’s global customers include services in the U.S., Belgium, Canada, Israel, Netherlands, Portugal, Thailand, Turkey and other nations.
There are other evolving international PTT projects.
OTHER INTERNATIONAL EFFORTS
Link Simulation & Training has provided 10 CF-18 PTTs as part of the Canadian Air Force’s CF-18 Advanced Distributed Combat Training System. The company also has on its order books for a late 2008 delivery three F/A-18 Tactical Readiness Trainers (TRTs) to support the Royal Australian Air Force’s (RAAF) F/A-18 Hornet Aircrew Training System.
“The Canadian PTTs and Australian TRTs respectively provide a training environment that permits the pilot to focus on ‘heads down’ operations while receiving visual cues via a limited out-the-window view and complete heads up display, to learn both basic operations, and sustain and hone advanced avionics skills,” said Mike Wallace, vice president, Air Force and Navy programs. “Both the Canadian Air Force and RAAF use, or intend to use, these devices for basic pilot training and containment of operational skills,” he added.
Across the ocean, Thales used a number of innovative strategies in the recently delivered Navigation and Attack System Trainer (NAST) for the venerable U.K. RAF Tornado G4.
The design concept for this trainer was to completely reuse the simulation software from the Thales Full Mission Simulator, including the aircraft Operational Flight Program, and provide a simplified cockpit representation including non-functional, two-dimensional representation for cockpit equipment not required for the specific NAST training tasks.
“For the Tornado NAST a majority of the cockpit controls, panels and indicators were simulated using several large flat-panel, touch-sensitive displays with cockpit representations generated using PC graphics,” observed Dave Spooner, strategic marketing director. “A functional hand controller was however provided. This approach provides high-fidelity representations, which are operable by the student where required,” he added.
The company also recently delivered an avionics PTT to a customer it could not reveal due to contractual prohibitions. Thales’s solution was to again extensively re-use software developed for a full mission simulator. In this case a HOTAS was provided, but to avoid the need for the student to constantly fly the simulated aircraft, additional facilities were provided allowing automatic control of the flight. A visual system using commercial flat panel displays provided a 50-by-40 degree field of view with heads-up display (HUD) symbology superimposed in the visual scene.
Typical training tasks for this type of PTT include operation of HOTAS, avionics systems, stores management system, HUD and instrument navigation systems. In addition students can train in the input, modification and interpretation of avionics and flight data.
CAE supports a number of other programs. The firm is designing and manufacturing C-130H PTTs for the Royal New Zealand Air Force. In April of this year, the company announced that it was teaming with the Spanish firm Indra to design and develop two EC-135 flight training devices for use at Eurocopter training centers in Germany and the United States.
PTTs are also becoming popular for UAV and systems training as these vehicles’ fleets expand worldwide.
UAV TRAINERS
“PTTs are absolutely ideal for UAV training,” pointed out Garrick Ngai, industry analyst, Aerospace and Defense, Frost & Sullivan. “If you think about it, UAVs are a culmination of different tasks, such as flight, weapons, communications and others on a single platform without the physiological effects of manned flight. It makes perfect sense for operators to be trained in the different areas and tasks before ‘flight’ in a full UAV simulator,” added Ngai.
Simlat provides the Stand-Alone Training System (STS) simulator for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions. The system provides computer-based training for aspiring and veteran UAV crews, and can be tailored to support diverse platforms, payloads, sensors and missions.
The Israel-based company enables the training audience to train as it operates by networking up to 12 stand-alone STSs in an ISR Visual Excellence and Academy Center. The students are guided through high-fidelity scenarios by an instructor at a master instructor and observer central station. Scenarios support UAV and systems sensor and payload operators, mission commanders, ISR payload operators, and visual intelligence interpreters and data analysts.
Amit Larom, vice-president, marketing and sales, provided several other insights on the advantages of PTTs for UAV training.
“The main challenge for the operator is the ability to pick up the right intelligence or to control several payloads in the same sortie. Simlat’s STS supplies the opportunity for the independent operator to practice and focus only on the issues he really needs to become a professional observer or mission commander, but still have an opportunity to maintain proficiency in other areas,” he said.
Larom also reflected on meeting other dynamic training requirements for his government clients.
“We have also observed the requirement for combat forces to efficiently operate mini-UAVs and other new vehicles and learn their techniques, and train increasing numbers of operators who are geographically dispersed. The part-task trainers that Simlat offers on commercial-off-the-shelf hardware are an efficient solution for those demands with respect to affordability and mobility.”
Simlat’s PTTs support Israeli Defense Force mini-UAV operators, and the UAV and systems training programs at that nation’s Air Force Academy.
BOLSTERING FIDELITY
Industry has taken steps within the last three to five years to heighten the reality of the PTT training experience.
“Today’s part task trainers may use actual aircraft parts and data to increase fidelity,” pointed out Chris Stellwag, CAE spokesman. “For example, the C-130J part task trainers CAE is fielding for the U.S. Air Force includes many actual C-130J aircraft parts, such as the head-up displays. Also, with the cost of image generators coming down in recent years, the addition of a visual system to PTTs is now more common,” he concluded.
A number of other strategies are being eyed to further increase the attribute of these trainers.
For its part, Link Simulation & Training notes that networking PTTs to allow pilots to train as they operate—in teams—is one solution. The company has other observations.
“Key to technology insertion is adding the physical interfaces the pilot will encounter,” opined Wallace. He also noted, “Control loading added to the stick and throttle will more accurately represent forces in the aircraft. The addition of an advanced helmet- mounted display would further immerse the pilot in the environment and permit the expansion of training objectives to include formation flying and 360-degree situational awareness. In addition, for night operations, simulated night vision goggles will permit achievement of many of the night attack training tasks along with night 360-degree awareness.”
Efforts to increase fidelity extend to maintenance trainers. Link’s F-16 Maintenance Training Devices are being infused with computer graphics technology that allows the older, hardware- dependent devices to train a much wider range of maintenance tasks.
“Even with this technology infusion, these trainers retain their hands-on mechanical touch-and-feel capabilities,” pointed out Wallace. “Once again this is an example whereby combining the attributes for multiple PTTs into a single, more capable device has eliminated the need to incur redundant baseline management costs,” he concluded.
FORECAST
“Sales of ‘traditional’ PTTs for avionics and systems familiarization are not expected to be robust in the U.S.,” predicted Frost & Sullivan’s Ngai. Sales of trainers for other tasks, such as weapons delivery, cargo loading and aerial refueling will be robust with some $40 million budgeted by the U.S. Air Force alone in Fiscal Year 2008. “International opportunities are good, especially for C- 130 and C-17 operators as well as rotary aircraft, such as the CH-47 Chinook, which the Canadians are acquiring,” concluded Ngai. ♦