F-22 Pilots to Get Advanced Trainers by '03.

• Author: Tiron, Roxana

Various training devices are planned for flight and maintenance

The simulators and training equipment for the F-22 Raptor air-superiority fighter aircraft are scheduled for delivery to the Air Force by 2003, industry officials said.

The F-22, which has been in development for at least a decade, cleared a major hurdle in September, when the Defense Acquisition Board approved the production of 10 aircraft, allowing the program to enter a $2 billion low-rate initial production phase. Lockheed Martin Aeronautical Systems Co. is the prime contractor. The Air Force could end up buying nearly 300 F-22s over the next decade.

The Boeing Co. supplies the F-22's wings, aft fuselage, avionics systems, training and life-support systems. A Northrop Grumman-led joint venture with Raytheon, under contract to Boeing, is developing, testing and manufacturing the radar system for the F-22.

For the development and production of training devices, Boeing received about $110 million in contracts.

In the long term, Boeing plans to produce 106 training devices, according to Alan Blackstock, Boeing's F-22 training-devices manager. Three types of pilot training devices and five types of maintenance-training devices are currently under development by Link Simulation & Training, in Arlington, Texas, a division of L-3 Communications. Another two maintenance devices are being provided by USM, in Houston, Texas.

The engineering, manufacturing and development (EMD)contract was awarded to Boeing and Lockheed Martin in 1991, but the development of the training devices only began in January 1997.

Two contracts worth $22 million for the maintenance-training devices and $28 million for the pilot-training devices were awarded to Link. In 2000, USM won the contract for the two additional types of maintenance trainers. The company declined to specify the value of the contract.

"We are currently developing 10 different configurations of training devices in EMD and are producing six production units in Lot 1 [copies of the trainers]," said Blackstock. He said that the training devices range from simple panel remove-and-install features to complex simulators.

For pilot training, Link is working on the F-22 full-mission trainer, a weapons tactics trainer and an egress-procedures trainer, said Rick Oyler, Link's spokesman.

"The F-22 full mission trainer is going to be the first trainer to employ a nine-facet SimuSphere visual system display," said Oyler. SimuSphere was designed as a...