26 août 2020 | International, Aérospatial
By: Valerie Insinna
NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. — A new simulator campus at Nellis Air Force Base could be key for the U.S. Air Force as it grapples with the question of how it can train pilots against complex threats like Russia and China at a budget-friendly cost.
On Aug. 17, the Air Force opened the doors of the Virtual Test and Training Center, or VTTC, a new, $38 million building where pilots will practice advanced tactics in a simulated environment that replicates war against a near-peer nation.
“When you think about great power competition and where we might have to fight — shipping out to fight a China or Russia, particularly — there is no live training venue for the joint force, certainly for the Air Force, that's big enough, that has the threat density that can replicate what China or Russia can do,” said Maj. Gen. Chuck Corcoran, who leads the U.S. Air Force Warfare Center at Nellis.
While live exercises will remain an important component of pilot training, the VTTC will give the Air Force a way to simulate a vast battlespace populated by high-end threats. Users will be able to network with other pilots on the system — who fly F-16s, F-22s, F-35s and F-15Es, with perhaps more to come — and fly complex missions against virtual enemies that are impossible to emulate in live training exercises like Red Flag.
The VTTC building, which Defense News toured during an Aug. 21 visit to the base, is currently empty. But it won't stay that way for long, said Lt. Col. Chris Duncan, an F-35 operational test pilot and commander of Detachment 1, 29th Training Systems Squadron.
F-15E Strike Eagle simulators are slated to be delivered to the center in October and will go online in April 2021. The joint simulation environment — a government-owned virtual training environment currently under development at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, and when finished will emulate high-end threats — is set to be fielded at the VTTC in October 2021.
“Typically aircraft simulators have taught pilots how to fly them and basic employment,” Duncan said. “We're not worried about those things. We're assuming they already know that.” Instead, the training will focus on more robust mission sets, including advanced training for Air Force Weapons School students, operational testing of new platforms and large-scale war games, he said.
The Air Force is deliberating how best it can expand the VTTC's capabilities over time on a limited budget. Among the factors under consideration is whether to buy additional simulators, such as ones for the new F-15EX. It may roll out the Nellis Mission Operations Network, on which the VTTC will run, to other bases such as Whitman Air Force Base in Missouri — the home to the service's only stealth bomber.
There is also discussion about how to integrate the simulators on the network with live aircraft flying on the Nevada Test and Training Range, which would allow the VTTC to project synthetic threats to jets practicing midair tactics.
Historically, the Air Force has been hard-pressed to fund advanced simulation efforts. The ultimate success of the VTTC may ultimately come down to whether there is enough money to continue funding simulators for additional aircraft and to keep upgrading hardware and software.
Duncan said the Air Force is already keeping that point in mind. Instead of simulators that provide a completely accurate cockpit experience, the service is looking to save money by prioritizing simulators that can provide the experience of advanced missions, even if the simulator imagery or cockpit experience isn't completely realistic.
But he underscored the cost-effectiveness of virtual training when compared to its live counterpart.
“The payoff, the bang for the buck,” Duncan said, “it far surpasses what we can do in live flying.”
22 novembre 2023 | International, Aérospatial
The contract follows the Italy-Slovenia Government-to-Government agreement signed on 17 November 2021, aiming to strengthen bilateral cooperation between the two countries.
1 mai 2019 | International, Aérospatial
By Allen Cone April 30 (UPI) -- Boeing's prototype MQ-25 unmanned aerial refueling drone is so huge it needed help from government agencies in Missouri and Illinois to move 40 miles. With assistance from law enforcement in both states, a truck carried the aircraft -- which is the size of an F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter -- from Boeing's technical plant at St. Louis's Lambert International Airport across the Mississippi River to MidAmerica St. Louis Airport, a small regional airport next to Scott Air Force Base in rural Illinois. The semi traveled on side roads and at 5-10 mph for much of the trip Sunday night, KDSK-TV reported. Temporary road closures were in Edwardsville, Marine and Lebanon as the jet moved through. The plane arrived before 6 a.m. Monday, KMOV-TV reported. The regional airport is in less crowded airspace, which "gives us some flexibility in how we can fly," Dave Bujold, the Boeing program manager overseeing drone project, told The Drive. Boeing plans to test fly the MQ-25 Stingray, known as known as T-1 or "Tail 1," before the end of the year. But first it must pass ground taxiing tests and the Federal Aviation Administration must certify the aircraft and grant clear airspace for it to fly. Ground control stations are being installed at the airport. The Boeing test aircraft later will undergo testing on the East Coast. The Navy will also hoist it onto an aircraft carrier for deck handling testing. "By the time the Navy's assets are jumping in the air, we will already have had thousands of test hours on the ground and hundreds in the air," Bujold said. The first Navy aircraft is scheduled to fly in fiscal year 2021. Last August, Boeing was awarded a $805 million contract to build four aircraft for the U.S. Navy. The drones, which won't carry weapons, will be based on aircraft carriers to refuel other aircraft mid-flight, including the Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet, Boeing EA-18G Growler and Lockheed Martin F-35C fighters. "The MQ-25 program is vital because it will help the U.S. Navy extend the range of the carrier air wing, and Boeing and our industry team is all-in on delivering this capability," Bujold said. Curtiss-Wright's Defense Solutions, which has been a Boeing contractor for 60 years, announced last week it has been awarded a contract by Boeing to supply data technology systems for the program. https://www.upi.com/Defense-News/2019/04/30/Boeings-MQ-25-refueling-drone-moved-to-air-base-for-flight-testing/5091556634478/
21 novembre 2018 | International, C4ISR
By: Justin Lynch Telepathy. Data uploading to the brain. Even humanoid sex robots. These are among the ideas that exist on a periodic table of disruptive technologies, a new visual guide that predicts what will alter human existence in the coming years. Created by Imperial College London, the table identifies what is set to change societies in the short term (smart controls and appliances), as well as fringe ideas that are decades away from existence, if they will exist at all (think force fields.) Yet the disruption could turn disastrous without proper data-security standards, according to one of the chart's creators, Richard Watson, the futurist in residence at Imperial College London. “There is very little here that is not in some way digital and connected, which makes it vulnerable,” Watson said. “Any kind of internet-of-everything device doesn't really work if you haven't got common standards — if Apple isn't sharing with Google and the French aren't sharing with the Germans.” Experts have long expressed concern about the lack of data standards for internet-connected devices. There is no international standard for data security. And U.S. government oversight of internet-connected devices is spread across at least 11 different federal agencies, according to a 2017 Government Accountability Office report. “As new and more ‘things' become connected, they increase not only the opportunities for security and privacy breaches, but also the scale and scope of any resulting consequences,” the report said. And there has been a flurry of cyberattacks using internet-connected devices. Some hackers are exploiting smart devices as an intermediary to attack computer networks, the FBI warned Aug. 2. Ninety-three percent of respondents told Armis, a security platform, in an August survey that they expected governments to exploit connected devices during a cyberattack. The Imperial College London chart offers a further glimpse at how important it may be to create these common regulations by imagining a wealth of potential breach points. Watson listed some of the table's future technologies that could be hacked. “Smart controls and appliances.” Hackable. “Autonomous robotic surgery.” Hackable. “Autonomous ships and submarines.” Hackable. “One of the issues with the stuff on here is that it relies on extremely good data security,” Watson said. The problem with having a developing ecosystem without global standards is that a single vulnerability could allow access to more than one network, and government officials and businesses are currently taking a strategy of letting the private sector debate how, or if, to regulate itself when it comes to internet-connected devices. One piece of bipartisan federal legislation, the 2017 Internet of Things Cybersecurity Improvement Act, mandates that “devices purchased by the U.S. government meet certain minimum security requirements," but it has stalled in Congress. As a first step, manufacturers should collaborate to establish device security baselines, Jing de Jong-Chen, general manager for global cybersecurity at Microsoft, said during a June conference hosted by the Woodrow Wilson Center, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. One private solution is a set of common guidelines developed by the IEEE Standards Association, an industry trade organization. The trade association's voluntary standards is evidence of a fear of government regulation that the private sector is openly hostile to. During the June event, the idea of government regulation of smart devices was laughed at by private sector officials in the room. But that laughter may have been premature. In September 2018, California Governor Jerry Brown approved a bill that requires companies to install connected devices with “a reasonable security feature” protecting it against unauthorized access. The bill means that the periodic table of disruptive technologies may eventually be impacted by a modicum of public regulation, although it is not clear if that will be effective. Not making it any easier is that no amount of planning can compensate for every technological innovation. For example, when it comes to the most disruptive future technology, the chart is secretive. In position 100, predicted to be the most innovative idea, the chart says it is too dangerous to publish. “We can't talk about this one,” it reads. In this instance, however, a potential security risk is averted. When asked if this technology is the one that will literally “break the internet,” Watson is forced to make a confession: “It's a joke. It's just us dodging the ball because we couldn't think of what to put there.” https://www.fifthdomain.com/industry/2018/11/20/disruptive-technologies-show-why-government-needs-data-security-standards-now/