NATO fighter pilots can now learn to fly together even when they are stationed thousands of kilometres apart. It should enable them to better learn each other鈥檚 combat tactics, and reduce the risk of friendly-fire incidents during coalition operations.
What has made it possible is a low-cost network of flight simulators developed by UK defence lab Qinetiq and US aerospace giant Boeing.
At present, NATO pilots from different countries rarely train with one another due to the huge expense of bringing together aircraft and their support staff. There are also too few full-motion flight simulators, which can cost $10 million each, to create virtual squadrons through remote link-up. As a result, often the first time many NATO pilots share airspace is on a mission.
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So Qinetiq and Boeing developed a $1 million system called the Mission Training Distributed Simulator, designed to make it easy to link up far-flung pilots. It does away with the full cockpits, high-resolution displays and hydraulic-driven movement of more sophisticated simulators, and instead relies on a simple cockpit in a static cubicle. Instead of high-res screens, 13 projectors knit together the visuals and display them on a wraparound surface.
MTDS was put through its paces on 18 May when an RAF crew in Lincoln, UK, 鈥渇lew鈥� four Eurofighters and four Tornados with US air force pilots in Mesa, Arizona, flying four F-16s and four A10 鈥渢ankbusters鈥�. With only a 0.2-second transatlantic delay, the pilots were able to fly joint missions against computer-generated targets.
