This September 21, the Royal Norwegian Air Force dramatically expanded the mission envelope of F-35As, with two of its F-35As landing on a highway in vicinity Tervo, Finland. Lt. Col Morten Hanche, Air Warfare Center/Fighter Branch, Royal Norwegian Air Force, took time from his busy duties to update MS&T on the training efforts behind the service’s recent hallmark success.
This is the first in a series of short articles on developments in flight simulation training devices for military, human-in-the-cockpit, rotary- and fixed wing aircraft. These articles will include “deep dives,” highlighting innovations in the devices themselves and in their underpinning technology foundations. Additionally, the series will identify the collaborative industry teams and acquisition program dynamics enabling the delivery of new FSTDs. The training devices in these articles will be randomly selected from military training enterprises around the globe.
The Day 3 presentation by Adam Breed, an engineering innovation architect at Lockheed Martin, provided the “glue,” so to speak, of an OEM’s insights on high-level, overarching S&T activities. The Orlando-based executive’s presentation Creating a Common Simulation Core Platform to Build Complex Training Scenarios with Unreal Engine furnished delegates with a glimpse of how this major defense company is strengthening and expanding its S&T activities in the Live, Virtual and Constructive training domains.
Kudos to Michael Vercio, Executive Vice President for Simulation Systems at FlightSafety International for using a healthy dose of science to lay the groundwork for his presentation Preparing Pilots for Upcoming Storm during Day 2 at UnrealFest 2023. The industry expert left no doubt that climate change is having its way across the globe, presenting the reality of more adverse weather during scheduled flights – and offering the imperative to prepare aircrews through their training continuum for the “new normal” flight environment.
During UnrealFest 2023, Sonia Mina, ATC Simulation Software Engineering Programs Manager for Adacel’s Simulation Business, updated delegates on her company’s efforts to advance ATC training, in partnership with Epic Games and Varjo. Marty Kauchak, MS&T editor attended Mina’s presentation Unlocking the Potential of Immersive Air Traffic Control Training and filed this extract of the conference presentation.
blackshark.ai is working with Maxar, Unreal Engine and other community partners to advance digital twins. Hannes Walter, VP for Product Management, Synthetic Training Solutions at blackshark.ai, provided UnrealFest 2023 delegates with an interesting data point on the evolution of digital twins as simulation underpinnings.
The global pilot shortage promises to be a recurring, spirited topic at next month’s EATS 2023, into next Spring’s WATS 2024 – and beyond. While credible, authoritative forecasts from CAE and other community stakeholders point to the differences between pilot supply and demand curves slowly and incrementally narrowing, there is still much work left to meet the insatiable demand for aircrews around the globe.
Three converging forces are compelling the US Air Force to modernize its basic military training construct. At the strategic level, the Air Force and the other US services are pivoting to Asia, with major implications for individuals, units and staffs who heretofore have operated in set-in-stone assignments on paper: airmen and Space Force guardians in the 2023-era have the potential to take on new, emergent tasks during a conflict in that region.
Marty Kauchak, MS&T Editor, remotely joined the Sept. 21 Central Florida Tech Grove-hosted event “Roundtable with the PMs” featuring Colonel Marcus Reynolds, Program Manager for Training Systems (PM TRASYS) and his staff. As connectivity permitted, MS&T gained insights on important developments across the US Marine Corps training portfolio.
This September 20, the US House of Representatives’ Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure convened a full member hearing on Oversight of the Department of Transportation’s Policies and Programs. The proceeding’s witness was The Honorable Pete Buttigieg, Secretary, US Department of Transportation. Marty Kauchak, CAT correspondent, viewed the hearing and provides extracts of topics of interest to civil aviation training and safety.