ANDREW HEALEY / LONDON
The increased sophistication of attack helicopters has led to a growing demand for in-theatre training facilities
The task of managing modern military helicopter systems puts enormous demand on crews. For example, it takes a Boeing AH-64D Apache Longbow pilot 18 months to attain combat-ready status, so skills must be honed at every opportunity. At the same time, the cost of flying these machines - estimated at $16,000/h for the AH-64D - makes on-site simulation training attractive. Not only that, but the ability to rehearse an operation - in real time, using a relevant database and against the latest assessment of enemy strength - enables planners to fine-tune tactics and build confidence ahead of the operation.
Operators of attack helicopters can expect them to be deployed in battlefields anywhere in the world, and increasingly expect the training devices to be deployed also. Trailers or containers can be fitted with hardware ranging from fixed-base trainers to virtual-reality cockpits which can be reconfigured to represent different types.
There are several levels of commitment to the principle of deployable training. The UK factored the acquisition of flight simulators into its £1 billion Apache Longbow training package, with each simulator comprising two 5.2m (17ft)-diameter domes, one for the rear-seat pilot and one for the co-pilot/gunner. The UK's main simulator centre is at Army Air Corps headquarters, Middle Wallop, Hampshire, where two full-mission cockpit trainers with six-axis motion bases provide conversion training. The centre still has to be retrofitted with Evans and Sutherland Harmony image generators, but is available for training and has already hosted an instructor's course.
Three more field deployable simulators (FDS) are deployed at regimental bases - two at RAF Wattisham, Suffolk, and one at RAF Dishforth, Yorkshire. Qualified Apache pilots will visit these for currency or skill sustainment training. The two bases have the same type of simulator, but only the machine at Dishforth can be packed up to join an expeditionary force. While all three FDSs are fixed-base, they provide aircrew motion cueing through the cockpit seats.
The Dishforth FDS fits into four ISO-standard containers: two dedicated to the pilot and co-pilot/gunner domes, plus one for the electronics and another for the instructor's station. The latter container can be extended sideways to give a remote debriefing facility or after-action review theatre. Once linked together, they require only a power supply. Evans & Sutherland makes the visual system, which projects the Harmony-generated images on to 2.4m-radius domes.
Desert skills
Mike O'Donohue, aircrew training manager for ATIL, the Boeing/Westland joint venture responsible for training and delivering UK Apache crews to the regiments, says: "If we'd had Apache for Operation Granby [the UK's name for Desert Storm], there's little doubt it would have been deployed. We had several months then in which to prepare, and a simulator facility at Al Jubayl - the UK's port of entry into Saudi Arabia - would have been tremendously useful for developing desert skills and, as the battle plans evolved, for mission rehearsal. One of our contract requirements is to be able to reconfigure the databases and we could have created those - perhaps not to the fidelity that is achievable with time, but good enough to practise the first wave, for example."Now we have the Dishforth field deployable simulator. While it will normally be used on site for conversion to role training, it is capable of being stowed in its containers within 12h and be ready for use within another 12h of arriving in-theatre. Reconfigured terrain and threat databases could be available within days. When wide area network connectivity is achieved next spring, there will be no practical reason - given bandwidth availability - why you should not be able to link it to the fixed UK facilities. We've already achieved local-area-network connectivity."
Although the FDS has just passed its "ready for training" assessment by the UK Ministry of Defence, it will be 2004 before the regiments will be in a position to benefit from it. The US Army is already evaluating its own Longbow Crew Trainers (LCT), which come from the same Boeing stable as the UK devices. The first LCTs were delivered to Fort Rucker, Alabama, at the end of 2000, to Fort Hood, Texas, in January 2001 and to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, in March.
The main physical difference between the LCT and the FDS is that the 2.4m domes are replaced by widescreen monitors. The LCT has fixed-base (known as "schoolhouse") and deployable versions, which can take a week to pack up and another week to set up. Boeing is taking the concept a stage further for the US Army. It is building a single Longbow Collective Training System (LCTS), which can train a full Apache Longbow company of six crews - 12 aviators - at once. The cockpits are networked to allow each member to see and interact with the others as they rehearse missions. They are containerised and can be available for deployment within three days. The system will be based at Fort Hood, where the army conducts itsAH-64D battalion certification training.
But LCTS is not just six LCTs clipped together, says Boeing international programme manager John Keegan. "While the LCT teaches individual pilots the basic systems and how to deliver the weapons, LCTS simulation concentrates on the wider tactical skills of communications, navigation and weapon tactics."
These Apache trainers offer top-end fidelity, but are type-specific and relatively cumbersome. But sacrificing some of their more sophisticated capabilities allows picking and mixing a range of helicopter types in the same trailer. This is where virtual reality enters the picture.
Under a $20 million contract, L-3's Link Simulation and Training division is completing a second pair of reconfigurable simulator suites - known as the Aviation Combined Arms Tactical Trainer (AVCATT) - for the US Army. This follows orders (in late 1999 and mid-2001) to build the first two, which are due for delivery by next March to Fort Hood and Fort Rucker. The new contracts will also be fulfilled next year.
Impetus for creating the AVCATT concept was generated after operations in Bosnia and Kosovo, when formal training was limited to what had been available in the USA - the 1999 fatal Apache accident in Albania was linked to a lack of familiarity with local topography and weather.
Each AVCATT suite consists of six simulator stations, a control room and a debrief/action-review theatre squeezed into two 16m-long trailers (longer than the ISO-standard containers employed by the FDS). They take about 8h to set up, requiring power and water (for the air conditioning).
Outside world
The main difference between AVCATT and LCT or FDS is that AVCATT crews wear helmet-mounted displays, through which they view computer-generated images of the outside world. The trainees handle real controls and look down, as they would using night-vision goggles, to scan instruments or select switches (some are actual switches, others representations).
Reconfiguration, which takes about 90min, involves changing flight controls, instrument panels (which in some cases involves just flipping them over - hence the representations) and software programs. Everything the crew needs to see is projected onto the inside of a helmet-mounted visor. If the helmet fails, a back-up visual display view is projected onto a plasma screen in front of them. Added effects include seat vibration, noise and a "faithful representation" of how the individual aircraft's stabilisation system behaves.
Link says any helicopter type can be replicated. The AVCATT manned modules represent four frontline helicopter types - the AH-64A Apache, Bell OH-58D Kiowa Warrior, Boeing CH-47D Chinook and Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk.
Partitions cater for the Apache's tandem cockpit layout. An AH-64D Apache Longbow module should be ready by mid-2003. One is in development for the Boeing Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche, and further progress depends on a decision on the programme's future. Multiple AVCATT suites can be linked together over a distributed simulation network.
The concept of collective (combined arms) training is catching up on in the US armed forces and networking is the key. AVCATT is compatible with the CCTT (close combat tactical trainers) used by the armoured corps and uses the same databases. L-3 is working on a field artillery model. "[Networking] brings the capability to rehearse complete missions on the simulator to within reach," says Link president James Dunn.
Under its initial contract, Link is providing terrain databases to simulate training areas in California, Texas and central Germany. Army and National Guard aviators will be able to train in simulated conditions including battlefield smoke, weapon effects, blowing snow, dust or sand, and variances in wind, visibility and cloud ceiling, in day, dusk or night environments.
"Commanders will be able to mix and match helicopter platforms, enabling aircrew to work as a team on complex simulated training missions," says Dunn. "They will be then be able to immediately analyse what went right, what went wrong and what skills or tactics need to be honed."
Programme manager Bill Durham has seen steep learning curves from test crews. "We put a new Apache crew, who had only been through a two-week AVCATT course, against one with 14 months' frontline service. When they got into the real aircraft, they flew the socks off the old hands. Not only was their kill-rate much higher, their survivability rate was 50% better - and that was on the prototype. The fielded version will yield even better results."
Source: Flight International
