Ft. Rucker Flight School Enters the 21st Century
Client: U.S. Army Aviation Center, Ft. Rucker
Challenge: The Army desired new technologies to supplement live aircraft training with cost-effective simulated combat environments to allow young pilots to quickly learn how to fly their assigned aircraft.
Solution: CSC led a team of commercial and military aviation training specialists and manufacturers to build a 136,000-square-foot facility, 38 aviation training simulators and another 18 reconfigurable training devices.
Results: The Army is able to meet its training objectives with simulators that offer all the flight dynamics of a real helicopter, including a cockpit that replicates that of a real aircraft and realistic environments and battlefield conditions.
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Watch a Fox News report about Flight School XXI.
In combat, there are no second chances. Whether flying a search and rescue mission over hostile territory or evading enemy fire during a firefight, military pilots rely on training to survive the battlefield. Now, an innovative new program allows U.S. Army helicopter pilots the opportunity to develop their wings before battle in the largest simulated training environment in the world.
Led by CSC, Flight School XXI Simulation Services is a state-of-the-art training system for young pilots to learn how to fly a host of different aircraft in controlled, simulated environments without ever leaving the ground.
Based in and around the U.S. Army Aviation Center at Fort Rucker, Alabama, a growing number of Army pilots have already immersed themselves in this virtual environment where the integration of technologies supplements their aircraft training time in providing them the ability to first learn how to fly as individuals, then as part of a crew and finally as part a team. The objective is to produce students that are ready to enter a combat environment in their assigned aircraft shortly after graduation.
The gift of flight
FSXXI consists of a team of leading commercial
and military aviation training specialists and manufacturers with CSC as the lead systems integrator. "Our teaming approach was a very unique way to make a proposal because it was initially expected that the flight simulator manufacturer would build the project," reflects Gene King, vice president and account executive for FSXXI. "But this was a job that would be too large for any single manufacturer. CSC took the lead and brought together typically competing companies that are leaders in their respective areas."
Flight School allows the Army to meet its long-term training objective of several months of 60 percent simulation and 40 percent live training. The FSXXI simulators offer all the flight dynamics of a real helicopter with six degrees of freedom motion and a cockpit that precisely replicates that of the real aircraft. Simulation also includes environmental conditions, such as weather, time of day, lights and lighting reflections and emergency conditions like smoke in the cockpit that could be encountered in the real world.
Flying the virtual skies
The views from the cockpit are built using terrain databases created from satellite imagery, which contain real-world detail using geo specific, full-color imagery and data required for low-level flight training in a specific area. This means the basic student learns to fly initially using a Fort Rucker database that is of such detail of the local landscape that he or she can recognize individual landmarks like telephone lines, buildings, stage fields and three-dimensional structures.
"You want them to have realistic visuals of what they're going to encounter when they fly," explains King. In addition to the Fort Rucker landscape, visuals are also provided for places such as Kosovo, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq. The resolution of these images is high enough to create realistic training scenarios for combat situations and peacekeeping operations, including geo-political events, such as demonstrations.
Prior to FSXXI, King says, "The Army had a small number of simulators with limited capabilities that didn't always match the training aircraft they were using. So they were supplementing, using aircraft instead of flight simulators, which can cost a great deal more, not including the cost of the aircraft itself."
Inside 'Warrior Hall'
Flight School's new home was built by means of modeling and regression analysis. CSC determined with precision the number and type of simulators required using numerous variables including, among other factors, crew rest, class transition time and size, maintenance, upgrades, brief/train/debrief facilities and resources.
The result: a new 136,000-square foot facility dubbed ‘Warrior Hall,’ which hosts 38 aviation training simulators. CSC is responsible for all aspects of the facility from building security to simulator and facility operations and maintenance. In a separate government facility, collective training consists of 18 reconfigurable training devices that can communicate with each other and be reconfigured into a specific aircraft with exchangeable panels and software.
"It took a CSC, which is big enough to take on this project, finance it and provide the leadership with the insight to take the risk for what had to be done," says P.J. Penny, director of Flight School XXI. "It's a fun and meaningful project and a lot of what we're doing is going to help save soldiers' lives."
Flight School XXI received a 2005 Award for Technical Excellence, CSC's top honor for innovation, sponsored by the Leading Edge Forum, which provides technology thought leadership for CSC.