Virtual missions: Army pilots fly simulated operations before deployments.

• Author: Tiron, Roxana
• Position: Flight Training - Cover Story

The U.S. Army's aviation branch is working to make a collective simulation exercise a staple of the pre-deployment package for pilots heading to Iraq and Afghanistan. Already, the aviation training exercise is mandatory for task forces assigned to the Balkans.

For about five years, the Aviation Center at Fort Rucker. Ala., has facilitated aviation-training exercises, known as ATX, to hone task forces' war fighting and peacekeeping skills prior to their deployments. The ultimate goal of an ATX is to identify weaknesses, said officials.

ATX "is one of the steps that allows them to bring their entire task force together to meet, and work out standard operating procedures and tactics at the brigade and battalion level," said Lt. Col. Christopher Shorts, ATX division chief. The virtual exercise is best done before pilots participate in their final mission rehearsal exercise at one of the combat training centers, Shotts added.

While pilots headed to Bosnia and Kosovo automatically go through the exercise, aviation units deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan have had the option to request exercises tailored for their missions. Hectic operational schedules, however, have not allowed many to take advantage of this option.

"Some units have such tight training plans and schedules that they can't fit it in," Shotts said. "We are working with FORSCOM [U.S. Army Forces Command] right now to get the same sort of paradigm set up for Operation Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom," as the Army already has for its Balkan deployments.

So far, the center has conducted four exercises that are focused on three different regions in Iraq. Most recently, the 18th Aviation Brigade, based at Fort Bragg, N.C., completed the exercise before it deployed in November. Shotts' group has conducted only one exercise geared toward Afghanistan, 14 for Bosnia and 10 for Kosovo.

The center anticipates three additional Iraq-specific exercises and one Afghanistan-tailored exercise in fiscal year 2005, according to Col. Lee LeBlanc, the head of the one-year old directorate of simulations at Fort Rucker.

"We know that there are deployments that are going to occur, and we are anticipating their needs," he told National Defense. "It is part of business."

Based on need and the deployment schedule, the aviation center prepares exercises with one to three months' notice, Shotts said. "We do an initial planning conference, and three months out is ideal," he explained. "One month out is a very compressed cycle, but we have done...