Air force to expand simulator network.

• Author: Tiron, Roxana

The U.S. Air Force will continue to upgrade and expand its network of combat simulators, despite widespread talk about training budget cutbacks and technical difficulties in networking disparate simulators from multiple contractors.

Officials told National Defense that the service remains committed to its Distributed Mission Training program.

DMT was designed to link the simulators from all Air Force fighters and support aircraft, so aviators can train collectively, in a synthetic, but realistic environment.

While the Air Force is expected to spend about $500 million on DMT through 2009, the funding levels could change, however, depending on whether the United States escalates military operations in Iraq, said industry officials. They noted that training accounts usually suffer when operations are under way.

So far, the Air Force successfully integrated four F-15 simulators at Langley Air Force Base, Va., with four other F-15 trainers at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. In recent months, one F-16 simulator was added to the DMT mix, at Shaw Air Force Base, S.C., and one at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, according to David Schairbaum, the Air Force DMT program manager. The trainers are linked to the AWACS simulator at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla.

The program got under way about five years ago. It was the brainchild of Air Force Gen. Richard Hawley, the former head of the Air Combat Command.

Lt. Col. Ronald Joseph, the chief of the Revolutionizing Training Division, at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, said he is optimistic about the future of the program, despite some technical hurdles. "We have some technological challenges with moving a lot of data from a wide array of sources, which are geographically separated," he said. "You have all those lines and congestion, and we need to have a good simulation."

Given the high-level fidelity that the Air Force demands for its trainers, the technology must work without "hang-ups," he said.

As the service looks to grow the network of DMT simulators, he explained, much of the focus will placed on upgrading existing trainers, to make them DMT compatible. "Our system right now is nowhere near full capacity, but as we grow, the technological problems will be a challenge," he added.

The Air Force, meanwhile, is also considering deploying DMT trainers to forward bases in Europe and the Middle East, sources said.

Lockheed Martin is preparing to deliver, by 2004, a four-ship F-16 mission training center...