NAWCTSD commander discusses the future of simulated training

By Christa Yates, Staff Writer

 

Navy Capt. Tim James, commander of Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division (NAWCTSD) and Naval Support Activity Orlando, addressed the needs of simulated and synthetic joint warfare training during the Institute for Defense and Government Advancement’s (IDGA) Military Simulation Training Summit in Orlando, Florida, Feb. 25.

 

IGDA’s two-day summit gathered over 300 senior training commanders, procurement officers and acquisitions leaders from across the military and provided a forum for networking and collaboration. This conference focused on training warfighters with simulation and synthetic training, and it explored how militaries (American and allied) are approaching interoperability with new technology and moving toward competency training.

 

James’ talk on the needs of simulated and synthetic joint warfare training explored how different technologies play a role in such training. While joint training technology is at the forefront of modern warfighter preparation, James noted that simulators are not his primary concern so much as the method of connecting them and asking: “How do we get the bandwidth, the security [and] the connectivity across all these different devices?” Although interoperability is also a concern, determining which training methods have the most significant impact and scaling those solutions to get the most cost-effective training take precedence.

 

“We’re dealing with the [training] network, how it scales, [and] interoperability, but simultaneously, we need to actually be able to quantify how good your training is,” James said. “It’s really easy to put a widget out there and just tell the world that you did good training, but more often than not, our sponsors cut out the part where we do the training effectiveness studies.”

 

Effective training is a core concern. According to James, naval aviation training underproduced pilots by 10% for 10 years, leading to a backlog of over 1,000 pilots in Pensacola who waited to begin their training years ago.

 

“The ‘four stars’ got involved and they started taking this problem very seriously,” James said. “Instead of producing [pilots] at 90% per year, they were tasked to produce 105-plus percent per year but they couldn’t do that by just saying, ‘Hey, everybody, work harder,’ right? You still have eight-hour flight restrictions. We had to find other ways to both shorten the timeline of training as well as expanding the bandwidth of training.”

 

One of the solutions James presented was the T-45C mixed reality training system. Prior to implementation, no small-footprint trainers for the T-45 existed. A single simulator took up an entire room. While James described these simulators as highly realistic and enjoyable to use, the size and cost of the simulators were not efficient.

 

“These huge-footprint devices were very expensive,” James said. [They costed] tens of millions of dollars and you’re only training one pilot at a time with one instructor watching.”

 

Engineers built and assembled the T-45C mixed reality training system in Orlando out of available materials and 3D printing. These new trainers were not only smaller and more cost-effective, but multiple systems could be linked allowing multiple users to train together simultaneously.

 

“[These T-45C] trainers are, let’s say, $500,000 and are replacing trainers that are $20 million,” James said. “Now, I can flood the room with 50 of these things instead of one or two, which creates a lot of different possibilities.”

 

The increased quantity of these trainers has provided greater flexibility, allowing pilots to find available devices to rehearse missions or recover from a failed exercise.

 

“We haven’t moved everything into these [trainers], but right now, we’ve got such a significant offload into these devices that has made a real impact in pilot production,” James said. “In the last two years, they’ve been able to produce over 100%.”

 

The desired solutions, according to James, are high-density, low-cost simulators that are lower fidelity, allowing multiple students to train and practice events.

 

“They all have different requirements, like the T-6, which we’re just now learning how to fly,” James said. “It doesn’t need to be connected; it doesn’t have to be high-res[olution]. You’re literally learning how to take off and land without killing yourself and how to talk on the radio without getting lost.”

 

He emphasized that getting to the future of training will require a quick change.

 

“We’re going to start embracing things like [artificial intelligence] and taking risks,” James said. “The way we train has to change because the way we fight is changing.”