The Defense Department directed the Navy and the Air Force six
years ago to develop a joint training instrumentation system for
combat aircraft. The project, called the Joint Tactical Combat Training
System, failed to deliver an acceptable product, said Pentagon officials,
so the program was canceled and the services are re-evaluating their
options.
JTCTS was designed to make flight training more realistic. During
exercises, missile-shaped pods that contain high-tech sensors are
mounted under the aircraft wings, so they can record and calculate
simulated firings of weapons and “kill” messages.
The data can be monitored in real time on ground- or ship-based
stations, or can be recorded for after-action review. JTCTS was
intended to provide a deployable training system that was not dependent
on dockside facilities, shore-based sites or fixed ranges.
The Navy originally sought this technology for tactical combat
training, to replace older Top Gun-type ranges. The goal was to
develop a range system that could be used at sea, where both the
aircraft and the ships would be instrumented. A previous Navy-only
program was cancelled in 1992. In 1995, the Defense Department mandated
that the Navy pursue a joint effort with the Air Force, which was
seeking a similar capability for its combat ranges.
Collectively, both services were expected to buy up to 1,800 pods.
The system’s prime contractor was Raytheon Company Naval and
Maritime Systems.
Since last year, however, the Navy stopped funding JTCTS and the
contract with Raytheon was not extended.
JTCTS program representatives at the Naval Air Systems Command,
in Patuxent River, Md., said they could not comment at press time.
A Raytheon spokesman said company officials were not available.
“The Navy decided to cut their losses,” said Dick Dickson,
program officer for range applications at the Naval Air Systems
Command, in China Lake, Calif. But even though the JTCTS program
was stalled, said Dickson, “the requirements are still there.”
The problem with JTCTS, he said, is that “it was trying to
do too much.”
Some JTCTS prototypes were tested at sea last year and “achieved
some success,” said Dickson. But the system “had problems.”
One reason why the program was unsuccessful, he said, was that the
Navy and the Air Force “added requirements that would have
made the system too expensive to produce, under Raytheon’s
approach.”
Dickson predicted that the Navy will end up buying “off-the-shelf”
training pods to fill its needs in the absence of JTCTS. Air-combat
maneuvering instrumentation systems are available on the market
today. Manufacturers of this equipment include Cubic Defense Systems
and Metric Systems Corp. Both companies have been in discussions
with the Navy’s JTCTS program office, but they declined to
comment about potential sales or contract opportunities.
John Walsh, assistant director of collective training at the office
of the defense secretary, lamented the fact that the Navy spent
$100 million on JTCTS and “got nothing.” Ultimately,
he said, “I think JTCTS failed, because the contractor didn’t
go through with it and build it.”
Asked whether the failure resulted from JTCTS being a joint program,
Walsh was noncommittal. His office is working to try to figure out
how the services can train together more, he said. “That is
a subject that we are trying to work on right now,” Walsh
said. “In actual practice, [JTCTS] was not a joint program,
but a Navy-led program where the Air Force would buy from. Maybe
there should be a joint program office.”
Joint training and testing is a sore subject at the Defense Department,
because most instrumentation systems are “incompatible with
each other,” said Dickson. “There are too many configurations
of testing and training equipment.”
The lack of standards, he explained, makes it difficult to fulfill
“growing requirements to conduct testing and training evaluations
simultaneously.”
Approximately 3,400 testing and training systems have been fielded
in 55 different configurations, said Dickson. Some of the hardware
that should be standardized, he said, includes pod shells, inertial
measurement units, GPS receivers, data links, power supplies, software
architecture, encryption and nose cones.
There is a simple explanation for the lack of compatible equipment,
said Dickson. “There is no penalty for not using standards,
and no reward for using them.”
Walsh noted that the Defense Department recently endorsed a so-called
“joint testing and training roadmap.” Under the JTTR,
the Pentagon will spend $1 million a year on a joint testing and
training architecture. The goal, said Walsh, is to provide a “seamless
environment” between constructive (for command and staff level
training), virtual (digital simulations) and live training.
“None of these systems today talks sideways, up or down,”
said Walsh, “We need a live/virtual/constructive environment
in which we can train.”