Shrinking budgets for new weapons systems and live-fire training may boost demand for virtual simulations and gaming technologies, said industry and military officials.
“At a macro level, we are seeing, globally, pressure on budgets and new opportunities for increased use of simulation,” said Chris Stellwag, spokesman for CAE USA, a supplier of modeling and simulation systems for civilian aviation and military forces.
Every time the Pentagon’s budget heads for a downturn, the debate surfaces: Is it cheaper to train in simulators?
Rising fuel costs make simulations more attractive, said Michael F. McGhee, acting deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for energy, environment, safety and occupational health.
In last year’s Air Force research budget of $618 million, approximately $120 million is for advanced flight simulators, according to briefing charts presented by McGhee at an energy conference in Washington, D.C.
In the Air Force, increasingly more flight training is moving to simulators, said Gen. Stephen R. Lorenz, commander of the Air Education and Training Command, at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas.
The Air Force currently is reviewing its undergraduate pilot training program. Part of the restructuring will include doing more of the training on simulators, Lorenz told reporters in Washington, D.C.
“At the basic level, simulation can do a lot,” he said. “But it can’t do everything. Eventually you have to fly the airplane.”
The potential greater use of simulators also is a factor in the Air Force’s analysis of how many new trainer aircraft it will buy to replace aging T-38s.
The service owns about 500 T-38s but does not expect to buy the same number of new trainers. How much of the training can be taken up by simulators is being studied, Lorenz said. A new “T/X” trainer could start replacing T-38s in 2020.
The Air Force has growing needs for both trainer aircraft and simulators for IFF, or “introduction to fighter fundamentals,” said Col. Robert Otto, an F-15C pilot and also the Air Force deputy director of air, space and information operations.
The biggest training need right now is in IFF, Otto said earlier this year at an Institute for Defense and Government Advancement conference.
What exactly the Air Force will want in its new trainer is far from settled, he said. “Do we want an aircraft to take us all the way to the doorstep of a fifth-generation aircraft, or do we want one just for secondary training and another for IFF?”
The number of flying hours that students spend on the T-38 has declined in recent years, from 118 to 100 hours over a six-month training program. More time is spent on simulators.
It costs about $2,000 per hour to fly the T-38, which is a relative bargain when compared to a minimum of $20,000 per hour for the F-22, Otto said. He noted that in the F-22 training program, pilots fly the same number of sorties as they would if they were learning to fly the F-15, but they log 50 percent more simulator time.
Otto said that simulators need to be “more realistic” to be effective in fifth-generation fighter training. “We need better visual acuity,” he said. “We want support from young aviators for the notion that the best training for a fifth-generation fighter will be in a simulator.”
Eventually, “We want to get to the point that the trainee comes out more mentally drained and exhausted from a simulator than from a real sortie,” said Otto.
Realistic training against fifth-generation fighters requires improved simulators because it is “fiscally unlikely we’ll get funds to build a opponent aircraft to simulate the enemy. That’s why embedded training is how we leverage available adversaries and challenge fifth-generation fighters,” Otto said. “For that reason, we expect the most realistic training to occur in simulators.”
One drawback in current simulators is that the live, virtual and constructive simulations don’t always work together, he said. Also, it is difficult to conduct multiplayer missions because of security restrictions that require players to have secret clearances.
“I have seen estimates that with simulations we can save $100,000 per full course student in air-to-air training,” Otto said. “When you add air-to-ground, the life cycle savings adds up to billions of dollars.”
Expanded use of modeling and simulation also is expected in other areas that are not related to training, such as prototyping of new weapons systems and analysis of futuristic concepts, Stellwag said. A case in point is the Army’s new ground combat vehicle. That system is in the early stages of design. Until the Army decides exactly what it wants, the vehicle will exist only in digital simulations.
The Army also is tapping into gaming technology more than ever before, said Steve Hopkins, vice president of professional services at CAE USA.
The company built a huge database of digital imagery from which the Army can build models and simulations for training and mission rehearsals. CAE has a year’s worth of backlog work as the demand for imagery soars, said Hopkins. At least half of the imagery requests are for 3D terrain models of Afghanistan.
The Army is building its own video games using software known as “virtual battlespace 2.” It allows soldiers to create their own mission scenarios or reenact events in virtual reality.
Three years ago, Army officials realized that they were wasting money and time because they did not have a single database to tap into for digital 3D imagery. Each individual simulation program office purchased and stored its own data. Not only was the Army paying multiple times for the same product, but it was unable to integrate different simulations into a single training event because the data was incompatible. The Army awarded a contract to CAE in 2006 to build a new integrated database. Hopkins also expects a larger market for “human terrain” simulations, which are designed for soldiers to learn about the culture of a foreign country. “There is more focus on social, cultural behavioral modeling, and what is the best way to interact,” Hopkins said.