Soaring Simulations: Air Force Aims for Common Virtual Training Environment.

• Author: Carberry, Sean

Exceeding the limits of an F-35 during a training exercise comes at a steep price: the loss of a pilot and an $80 million aircraft. But if that exercise takes place in a virtual environment, then there's no harm in pushing the envelope. In fact, it can yield important data on the capabilities of the aircraft and the pilot.

Advances in technology are facilitating more detailed simulations of weapons and operating environments. That's allowing the Air Force to transition more training from the real to the virtual world.

The Air Force today has some 2,400 virtual devices globally--used by the service and foreign partners--ranging from desktop trainers to full-motion simulators with 360-degree domes and aircraft cockpit hardware, said Col. Charles Ryan, senior materiel leader for the simulators division, agile combat support directorate, which is responsible for sustaining, modernizing and developing Air Force simulators and training devices.

There are two major activities ongoing to boost the interoperability and functionality of simulators, he explained during an interview.

The simulator common architecture requirements and standards initiative, or SCARS, is a sustainment effort designed to "incrementally establish open architecture for Air Force simulators," which involves defined standards and common applications, software and hardware, he said.

Last year, the service was looking to create a consortium with industry to inform the development of a common synthetic training environment based on SCARS, he said.

"The idea there was to define the attributes and to do experimentation to understand the performance needs of a common environment, understand where those technical risks are, and develop capabilities to get after that environment," he said.

However, earlier this year, the service determined it didn't need to reinvent the propeller. It already had most of what it needed in the joint simulation environment, or JSE, he said.

The JSE was designed to serve as a high-fidelity, virtual testbed to certify the capabilities of the F-35 so it could move into full-rate production. Like many aspects of the F-3S program, it is running four years behind schedule and is not yet capable of conducting the 64 trials necessary to certify the fighter. Hence, the F-3S's Milestone C is years behind schedule, according to an April 2022 Government Accountability Office report, "F-3S Joint Strike Fighter, Cost Growth and Schedule Delays Continue."

The report...