Forum: General F-35 Forum

Simulator Brings New Level Of Realism to F-35 Training
By DAVE MAJUMDAR : 28 November 2011

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i= ... &s=SPE

"The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program aims to field a breakthrough jet that will be the first mass-produced stealthy, supersonic combat aircraft, but it also aims to train its pilots on the most sophisticated simulators ever developed.

The simulator is so advanced that it can replicate the difficult challenge of aerial refueling, said Lt. Col. Eric Smith, an F-35 test pilot for the U.S. Air Force and one of two initial Lightning II instructors at the 33rd Fighter Wing, Eglin Air Force Base, Fla.

Teaching newly winged pilots how to perform aerial refueling in a simulator is a major technological breakthrough, said Joanne Puglisi, director of training at F-35 prime contractor Lockheed Martin, which also makes the simulators.

Each of the F-35 full mission simulators (FMS) costs $20 million, according to the Air Force's fiscal 2012 budget submission. According to the service's budget documents, it has ordered 10 of the FMS devices so far, though more are undoubtedly going to be needed as additional jets enter the fleet....

...On the F-35, aerial refueling will be taught in the FMS.

"Having done it in the real F-35 and having done it in the sim, it is extremely realistic," Smith said. "Initially, when we developed the training system, we had not planned on that being part of the student's simulator training."

However, after several pilots experienced how accurate and realistic the simulation is, the wing decided to make aerial refueling part of the simulator curriculum....

....Moreover, the simulation is highly realistic because not only does the F-35 FMS use the real aircraft's Operational Flight Program (OFP), but it also uses all the actual computer models from the aircraft's sensor manufacturers and integrates that data.

"We are using their simulation models in the simulator," Puglisi said. "A lot of trainers just used the OFPs."

From the pilot's perspective, the FMS flies just like a real F-35, Smith said.

"The airplane runs an own-ship kinematic model while it's flying; that's how it knows where in space it is," he said. "The sim uses that exact aero-model."

The result is that "it flies identical" to the real jet, Smith said. Additionally, it has the same engine model as the real plane.

"To the max extent possible, they put the real software that's in the jet in the sim," he said....

...But the realism extends beyond the aircraft and its subsystems. The F-35 FMS can replicate the tactical environment that a pilot and his wingmen would face in combat. The sims also can be linked, and pilots can experience flying in a multiship environment against a vast array of air and surface threats, Smith said....

...Eventually, the simulator will be able to link to other F-35 bases and to different types of aircraft simulators across the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, Puglisi said.

In another major technical innovation, the F-35 FMS has briefing and debriefing areas, where pilots can go through a flight visually, minute by minute, angle by angle, with multiple students and instructors, Puglisi said....

...But no matter how advanced a sim is, it's no substitute for real flying, he said. "Forty-five thousand-pound flying chunks of metal out there around you adds some realism that you can't put in a sim."

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