World News & Analysis current and potential defence programmes. Even so there were some training items to note. Alion introduced the LCS virtual ship and the LCS virtual DC concepts; Thales demonstrated the Australian ASLAV desktop trainer; RCAF pilots lined up for Lockheed Martin’s F-35 FTD; Pennant drew interest from the airborne community with their virtual parachute trainer VRPT2; NGRAIN is continuing their development of augmented reality applications; C4I, builders of MILSIM and EDMSIM, noted that business is growing and they are making inroads with their lower cost constructive simulation simulations; and Race Rocks 3D Canada is a growing small company that focused on high end 3D imagery and models. CANSEC 2014 will be held at the Ernst & Young Centre on May 28 & 29, 2014 – Jeff Loube
Levels of Fidelity IX The ninth in the biennial Levels of
Fidelity series of seminars was held at the Swedish Army Land Warfare Centre at Kvärn in Southern Sweden between 10 and 12 June 2013. This event has historically been sponsored by those companies that specialise in the area of live and instrumented training for land forces, in conjunction with the armed forces of the host nation; in this case, unsurprisingly, Saab took a lead role for industry. The aims of the seminar are diverse: it provides a focal point for the members of this professional community, allowing an exchange of views and updates on developments in the field, and is a vehicle for static and live demonstrations of tactics and equipment. LoF IX attracted well over 100 delegates from 14 nations. Kvärn is a large and comprehensive training range that, along with the neighbouring facility at Skövde, provides a variety of courses for officers and NCOs. The centrepiece is a recently upgraded facility for Military Opera-
tions in Urban Terrain (MOUT). MOUT is assuming an increasingly prominent position in the training priorities of many armies; indeed, as BGen Stefan Andersson, the Director of Land Training reminded us in his opening address, armed forces - around the western world at least - are undergoing widespread downsizing, and training is constrained by both financial and environmental factors. At the same time, research suggests that the probability of the urban environment as a likely battlefield has increased from 22% in 1950 to 75% today. Presentations included an update from the NATO Urban Combat Advance Training Technology (UCATT) working group on progress towards standardisation and interoperability of training systems, and a report on URBAN WARRIOR V, a trial exercise conducted by the UK Army with the aim of identifying ways in which LVC could be used to redress a perceived imbalance in capability caused by prolonged operations in Iraq
Paris Air Show The Salon de Bourget 2013 – aka the Paris Air Show – took place between 17th and 23rd June, and was notable, inter alia, for some spectacular thunderstorms, and an apparent attempt on the Guinness Book of Records ‘maximum number of people in a shuttle bus without benefit of air-conditioning’. This being very much a showcase for hardware, and somewhat dominated by the civil aviation market, discovering items of interest in the field of military simulation and training took a little detective work, but there were some nuggets to be found. There was a strong Israeli presence at the show, with Elbit, IAI and Rafael much in evidence. A consistent theme was the growing importance of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), the burgeoning requirement for pilots and payload operators, and the consequent need for effective devices with which to train personnel from a wide spectrum of aviation backgrounds. Another notable presence at the show was that of the Russian Federation; all the major companies – Beriev, Ilyushin, Irkut, MiG, Sukhoi and Tupolev – exhibited under the banner of the United Aircraft Corporation; the adjacent stand was occupied by Russian Helicopters. One entertaining, if not state-of-the-art, display was a 3-D MiG-29 simulator, which allowed the victim to practise such disciplines as air refuelling and deck landings. I have to report that my first attempt at the latter resulted in a missed wire followed by a swim. Recognising the need for high-performance image generation and detailed databases for rotary-wing simulation, Sogitech have developed a system shortly to be delivered to the French Army for training on NH90, which gives a very high resolution display over the entire area of France. 46
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Turning to platforms, the most important training aircraft contract on the books at the moment is T-X, the US T-38 replacement programme. Of the three current contenders – the KAI/Lockheed Martin T-50 Golden Eagle, the Alenia-Aermacchi M346/T100 Master, and the BAE Systems Hawk AJT - only the Hawk was on display, although the M346’s Russian cousin, the Irkut Yak-130 provided an entertaining flying display. No further details emerged of Boeing’s plans to compete for T-X with a new-build aircraft. In the meantime, other advanced trainer competitions, such as that upcoming in Poland, may give an indicator of how the contestants are viewed. During the show, Alenia-Aermacchi and the Italian MoD announced their collaboration on the development of the M-345 High Efficiency Trainer (HET), expected in service between 2017 and 2020. This lightweight jet aircraft is a development of the M-311 demonstrator, incorporating HUD and glass cockpit, and bucks the recent trend for turbo-prop intermediate trainers, such as Tucano, PC21M and T-6 Texan. On a more general theme, the serious players in the training game no longer offer just a platform or just an STD, not least because all major competitions require comprehensive and coherent solutions; the competitors have to provide them, either alone or in partnership, and all profess to do so, using such terms as ‘system of systems’, ‘integrated training solutions’, and ‘cradle to grave’. However, it becomes increasingly difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff, and to identify original thought from platitude. This, thankfully, will be the task of the bid evaluators, not mine! – Dim Jones