Paul Seidenman/SAN FRANCISCO
The US Air Force has completed more than 7,000 air combat training sorties using the Kadena Interim Training System (KITS). The USA's first operational rangeless training system, KITS was deployed in August last year at Kadena AB in Okinawa, Japan.
KITS replaced the overwater Air Combat Manoeuvre Instrumentation (ACMI) range, closed by the USAF at Kadena five years ago because of high operational and maintenance costs. Among the main cost drivers were the towers that provided datalinks between the aircraft used in the training exercises and the ground-based control centre. Seabed-anchored, the towers were subject to extreme wind and wave action during typhoons, which often left the system inoperative.
KITS has been used by the US Air Force's 12th, 44th and 67th Fighter Squadrons (FS), all based at Kadena. According to Maj Richard Gibbs, 12 FS operations officer, KITS restored the ability to perform continuous training sorties and debriefings at Kadena.
"Between the time that the ACMI was shut down and we got KITS, the only training aid we had was a video camera in the cockpit of each aircraft, which recorded the head-up display and radar," Gibbs says. "Using that, and a two-dimensional chalk board to draw lines of flight, all we could do during the debriefing was to recall what we did, with no hard data to back it up. Now, instead of creating a lot of lines on a chalk board, we have colour, 3D computer graphics that show the position of all the aircraft throughout the training exercise, and the simulated weapons fly-outs. It has eliminated the guesswork, and enhanced what we can learn from the post-sortie debrief."
Like ACMI, KITS can replay a training sortie from several perspectives: forward from the cockpit, "grandstand" (from the side), and "God's Eye" (from above). "But KITS also adds a new vantage point - 'look back'," says Gibbs.
Compared to a conventional land-based or overwater ACMI, Gibbs says KITS is "the next step forward" in training quality. "The key is the missile fly-out simulation," he says. "For the first time, we have the ability to see a simulated kill in near real-time because of the datalinks in the pods. This makes the training sortie more realistic. In contrast, with ACMI, we depended on a ground-based monitor to tell us what happened. This means that a simulated kill might not be reported to the pilot of the target aircraft at the time it happened."
In its first year of operation, Gibbs estimates, KITS has saved the USAF about $1 million in maintenance costs alone, mainly on the towers and other equipment needed at the Kadena overwater range. He adds that, to date, pod reliability has been running at 90-95%.
KITS was developed for the USAF under a $9.7 million contract with Cubic Defense Systems of San Diego, California. The system is based on the Cubic's Air Combat Training-Rangeless (ACT-R) technology and it packages all of the data gathering and processing electronics of an ACMI range into an airborne instrumentation pod. The data is later reviewed using a PC-based display unit.
The 13cm-diameter, 3.5m-long, 60kg (130lb) pods is designed to be mounted - by three people, in 3min - on a missile launch rail on the Boeing F-15 or Lockheed Martin F-16. The pod, which requires no airframe modifications for mounting, houses global positioning system (GPS) and datalink antennas, a processor interface unit, a 12-channel GPS receiver, an AC-to-DC power supply, a UHF transceiver, and an SHF assembly and transponder. The heart of the pod is an expandable, 40 Mbyte solid-state recorder, known as a data transfer device (DTD), which can record up to 3h of mission data.
Using a laptop or personal computer, a technician loads the DTD with pre-selected data, including the player identification number, in-flight callsigns, and the specific types and number of weapons to be simulated during the exercise, as well as other mission-unique parameters. Weapons simulated include the AIM-7 Sparrow, AIM-9 Sidewinder and AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles.
The DTD can be programmed for up to three different missions per sortie. For Kadena, the USAF placed an initial order for 24 pods, but has since taken delivery of 16 more.
Once airborne, the pod on each aircraft in the training exercise "talks" to other pods, via redundant SHF/UHF datalinks, which also communicate time/space position information among the participants at regular intervals.
When the pilot initiates a simulated weapons fly-out, the aircraft's weapons control system signals the pod, which selects the target and simulates launch of the selected weapon. If the sensors on the aircraft determine that this virtual weapon has scored a hit, the pod will send a "kill" message via the datalink to the corresponding pod on the target aircraft.
The pilot of that aircraft will receive a recorded message that his aircraft has been hit, as will the pilot who scored the kill.
KITS can track up to 24 aircraft simultaneously, handle 48 simultaneous weapon simulations from all mission participants, and up to four simultaneous weapon simulations from any one aircraft. The system architecture can be expanded to include additional aircraft.
At the end of the exercise, the data recorded by each pod is downloaded via the DTD to a server, which feeds the data to the display/debrief unit for full mission debriefing. The display/debrief system includes a PC server unit, a graphics workstation, a studio quality 8mm videotape editing unit, a 940mm (37in) monitor and two 500mm monitors connected to a graphics unit. Using computer-generated graphics and text, the display unit will replay, in three dimensions, all flight dynamics and profiles of all participating aircraft, weapons events, and the outcome of each engagement. The events displayed can be frozen on-screen, reversed, or fast-forwarded during replay.
Among the improvements offered by KITS is a unique training aid: "It is the first and only air combat training system that incorporates a hypothesiser," says Keith Shean, KITS programme manager for Cubic. "This is used in the debriefing of the training exercise, and allows the instructors to study a simulated weapons launch and hit, and then show the student what would have happened if a different weapon had been used, or if the weapon had been fired from a different range."
Shean also points out that, as the first USAF system of its kind to be GPS-based, the tracking capacity of KITS has been significantly increased. "When training sorties were flown below 5,000ft over an ACMI range, the ground-based sensors lost the ability to accurately assess what was taking place, because the triangulation needed to fix the position of the players was degraded. KITS has significantly upgraded the training value per flight hour, because a fixed range is not required."
Shean says KITS is a more capable system and costs less than a ground-based or overwater training range. "If you look at the $9.7 million cost of the KITS contract, that is as little as 25% of the cost of an ACMI range, which is between $30 million and $60 million today," he says.
In May, during KITS' first operational deployment outside Kadena, several pods and a display system were flown to Alaska for use by the 3rd Fighter Wing at Elmendorf AFB. In August, the Michigan Air National Guard took delivery of a system for use at the Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center.
The system, designated AKITS for the Alpena deployment, was delivered with 14 pods, and two display systems. But AKITS also incorporates a real-time, ground-based monitoring system. This uses colour alphanumeric text and graphics to show the dynamics of the aircraft as they move about the training range, including airspeed, altitude, Mach number, and g. The data is displayable on any PC monitor.
According to Lt Col Ewin Sansom, director of operations at the Center, the Michigan ANG selected the real-time monitoring capability as a safety feature. "We train over an area that is about 70 x 120 miles [112 x 193km], and from the surface to 50,000ft. About half of the area is over Lake Huron, and we wanted to make sure that the training scenarios don't interfere with Canadian airspace over the north shore of the lake, where there is a lot of commercial airline traffic," he says. "In addition, it gives us greater flexibility in the direction of the training exercise from the ground."
Sansom says AKITS will be used by the 127th Fighter Wing of the Michigan ANG. Two other nearby ANG fighter wings, the 180th and the 122nd, from Ohio and Indiana, respectively, are also likely to train at Alpena using the AKITS. All three units use F-16s. "We are still in a trial period, and expect to procure at least another 24 pods, as the number of players using the range expands," says Sansom.
Sansom says that the Michigan ANG has enough experience of the system to know it may already be making a difference in the quality of training. "Our pilots are saying that it's a 'good, honest, training system,' which provides excellent missile fly-out parameters, and an accurate, air-to-air activity debriefing," he says.o¢
Cubic's ACT-R pod can be mounted on an F-15 (above and left) by three people in 3min; (right) close up of the antenna - pod reliability is running at 90-95%, USAF says
"Our pilots are saying that it's a 'good, honest, training system,' which provides excellent missile parameters"
Source: Flight International
