|
The Pilot Training System employs three sophisticated
simulators, all made by Link Simulation & Training,
formerly Raytheon Training Inc., or RTI, in Arlington, Texas.
They are:
- The Full Mission Trainer, or FMT
- The Weapons and Tactics Trainer,
or WTT
- The Egress Procedures Trainer
The fixed-base FMT flight simulator
has the visual realism and dynamics of the external
landscape, atmospheric conditions, and mission threats and
targets of a flight environment. With the additional
fidelity of the cockpit controls, displays and
instrumentation, the pilots can experience the intensity of
an exciting instrument flight or combat mission scenario.
The FMT's external world is seen at flight maneuvering
speeds and offers visibility in all directions.
In the FMT, the pilot sits in a full-scale, fully equipped
cockpit set inside a partial geodesic dome with nine
rear-projected facets. FMTs will be networked in groups of
four co-located units at each training site. At these sites,
each FMT can operate individually or with any or all of the
others to conduct formation missions. FMTs, as will the
F-22, incorporate video recording of cockpit and mission
activities for post-flight review.
The Weapons and Tactics Trainer is
a procedural trainer designed to refine airplane systems and
weapon-delivery operating skills prior to training in the
FMT or in an F-22. The WTT is a partial cockpit with a
dynamic, forward-only, outside view, and faithfully
represented mission equipment. It provides essential
navigation, communication, and weapons set-up and delivery
displays, panels and switches.
Pilots use the F-22 Air Force
Mission Support System to prepare mission data for the FMT,
the WTT and the airplane. The FMT's video equipment records
cockpit instrumentation and Head-Up Display guidance cues,
overlaying the outside forward field-of-view, to support
off-airplane debriefing.
The Egress Procedure Trainer
primarily supports pilot training on proper aircraft entry
and exit under normal and emergency conditions, as well as
ground and in-flight ejection.
| Maintenance Training System
|
The U.S. Air Force base that will house the primary
maintenance-training system will have seven full-scale,
partial airplane mockups — built by RTI and
United Scale Model — as well as a trainer engine
built by Pratt & Whitney. Pratt & Whitney
is also producing portions of the engine maintenance
courseware. These eight devices include the fuel system;
on-airplane structures repair; armament; landing gear and
auxiliary power supply; aft fuselage; cockpit and forward
fuselage; seat and canopy; and engines. Each operational
base will have three trainers: engine; seat and canopy; and
on-airplane structures repair.
 The
MTS also will employ smaller-scale laboratory and backshop
settings for component-level training with a range of
expendable parts and serviceable, but not flightworthy,
components. The F-22's Integrated Maintenance Information
System, or IMIS, the operational tool that records and
networks real fleetwide maintenance information, will be
fully integrated. The more complex trainers, which have
onboard diagnostics like their real airplane counterpart
functions, will download to IMIS to emulate the transfer and
dissemination of real airplane maintenance data.
Trainees and operational
flight-line mechanics will use the IMIS Portable Maintenance
Aid, a laptop device carried between the flight-line
aircraft or training mockups and transportable IMIS
consoles.
Pilot and maintainer instruction will employ digitally
mastered, multi-media computer-based training — desktop
and wall-projected — that merges video and audio
(digitized from analog recordings); sophisticated graphics
(derived from actual F-22 engineering computer-aided design
source material); digital photography; and lesson syllabi
scripted by subject matter experts, or SMEs. Many of the
pilot and maintenance SMEs have years of combat experience
with current front-line military weapons and systems. 
The SMEs will use state-of-the-art
instructional system design methods, processes and tools
developed for the Boeing 777 and aircraft training program.
On individual PC-based workstations, students will complete
self-paced or instructor-led lessons and tests that
incorporate the best in interactive graphics, video and
audio.
For maintenance training, the
instructor will use a console to project courseware
material, send courseware select student workstations and
monitor student activity.
During pilot training, students
will spend time in instructor-led, multi-media, lecture-only
classrooms and also weapons and tactics trainer classrooms,
where instructors can project training-mission information
and graphically demonstrate procedures. Students will then
practice on their own WTT cockpit consoles and panels.
| Training System Support Center
|
The Training System Support Center, or TSSC, incorporates
the tools, methods, processes and technical order data
source material to ensure support of the training system at
all locations over the life of the F-22 program. The TSSC
will modify, enhance and expand the curriculum and equipment
as operational experience, and new roles and missions
emerge.
The Training Management Systems, or
TMS, will track student training and testing schedules, and
track and schedule the availability of all training assets
against real-time student requirements. This will minimize
the impact training will have on equipment maintenance.
TSSC configuration management will
ensure concurrency with the proper aircraft configuration
and operation. Each training site will receive and retain
only the most current training materials appropriate to its
mission. The TSSC will prepare and distribute future
training materials as new roles, missions and weapons are
added to the fleet.
As part of the current Engineering and Manufacturing
Development, or EMD, phase of the F-22 program, Boeing is
supporting the F-22 flight-test program at Edwards Air Force
Base, Calif. The company is developing and conducting
interim training for the Combined Test Force, which includes
the initial group of operational pilots and maintainers.
Additional Boeing EMD efforts
include developing and procuring all operational TSSC
assets, such as secure facilities and courseware development
workstations. The TSSC will retain and employ the EMD
prototype pilot and maintenance training devices as part of
the overall tool mix. Production devices are scheduled to be
ready for training at the first training site, Tyndall Air Force Base
in Florida, in January 2003.
Boeing,
June
2000
Above
data, info, and article written and used from Boeing
|
The
program's training system is uniquely configured to
accommodate future technology and mission enhancements,
including new aircraft operational flight programs, weapons
and tactics additions, and courseware development and
presentation tool improvements.