Military simulation systems are becoming increasingly realistic
Students at the UK's Defence Helicopter Flying School are the first to train on the latest in military simulation technology - Evans & Sutherland's Harmony high-performance image generator. The visual system is at least a year late in entering service because of development delays, but sets a new standard in flight simulation realism.
Harmony's training debut is among the more significant milestones in military simulation of the past 12 months. Over the coming months, Harmony systems will begin entering service with a number of programmes, including the UK's Medium Support Helicopter Aircrew Training Facility, GKN Westland WAH-64 Apache aircrew training system and Panavia Tornado GR4 synthetic training service. Other programmes planning to use Harmony include the German army's SimNTF helicopter training facility and the US Navy's Sikorsky H-60 simulator upgrade.
Several key programmes have been awarded over the few months. In Europe, Thomson Training & Simulation has been selected to provide Eurocopter Tiger aircrew training equipment for the French and German armies.
Simulator master plan
In the USA, Lockheed Martin won the US Marine Corps Simulator Master Plan contract, and a major US Navy training systems programme, and will supply simulators for a wide range of aircraft types under both agreements, together potentially worth $675 million.
Lockheed Martin, teamed with BAE Systems (formerly Reflectone), was also awarded a US Air Force contract to build and operate a training centre for its new C-130J transport. The same team's C-130J training centre for the UK Royal Air Force became operational late last year, and the pair are to build a C-130J training centre for the Italian air forces.
Recent export orders include one from Israel for a simulator interchangeable between the Boeing F-15I and upgraded F-15AUP, and one from the United Arab Emirates for a Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 60 training system. Both were won by Lockheed Martin.
In other milestones the US Air Force's distributed mission training vision became a reality this year when the first networked F-15 simulators entered service in two Boeing-operated centres. Lockheed Martin is building similar training centres for the USAF's F-16 force.
Source: Flight International
