RYAN AEROSPACE Australia has signed a major contract with the US Army to develop an integrated flight simulator for the T-38C aircraft to train pilots for the Fighter Bomber Fundamentals Course to train the next generation of pilots.

RYAN will work with long-term partner Vertex Solutions to develop a new upgrade package that will transform the US Air Force’s existing training devices (ITDs) from virtual reality to mixed reality higher solutions. Mixing is when the pilot (using a camera via a VR headset) sees some of the real and virtual. So while everything outside the cockpit is virtual, the contents of the actual cockpit can interact with what they believe to be.

Managing Director, Chris Ryan said he was thrilled to win this contract as it is the next stage of their ground-breaking work on the Pilot Training Transformation Program (PTT) where they delivered close to 300 virtual reality training devices. The fact that they were designed with the future in mind, they can now rapidly and cost-effectively be transformed into mixed reality simulators for a different aircraft. This is important for the government and taxpayers as they are getting great value for money.

The Department of Defense (DIU) said The introduction of the fifth generation aircraft has changed the nature of air combat and the training of the American military. The military ecosystem is dependent on and suffers from all simulator systems and real-time flight, network interoperability and content delivery. However, the unique design enabled DIU, RYAN AEROSPACE and Vertex Solutions to develop a capability that could be expanded to various other aircraft trainers such as the F-16 and soon the T-7A.

Vertex Solutions (with RYAN AEROSPACE as hardware partner) is developing a new Reconfigurable Virtual Training (VTRAD) MR Simulator for Air Superiority (VTRAD) VTRAD Simulator, Over the Air (OTA) form contract car. OTA, these and other tasks are done with a quicker “easy button” to sign up. Similar contracts in the past would typically take two to three years to deliver the work to end users. The strategy will be available as a model within a year of the challenge’s announcement and will complete the solution (first five devices) in 19 months.

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