1970 &2014
T
he objective of flight simulation has always been sav- ing lives and money, and flight simulators have been around nearly as long as aircraft have. Te reason is simple: Airplanes are expensive, and training with a real
aircraft is a significantly dicier proposition than training on, say, a land vehicle. If the new pilot survived—not a given—the aircraft might not. But give a pilot-in-training the experience of flying and landing an aircraft in a penalty-free environment, and live train- ing is much more likely to ensue—and to succeed.
Today’s computing power provides flight simulators with vastly more capability since the 1920s, when Edwin Link, son of a piano- and organ-maker, developed the Link Trainer using parts adapted from the family organ factory. Te contrast makes the earliest simulators—from flightless planes to a half-barrel with a seat and poles that helpers could use to rock and pivot the barrel, thus “sim- ulating” flight—seem laughable. (Link’s system used pneumatics.) A March – April 1970 article in Army Research and Develop- ment magazine, the predecessor to Army AL&T, detailed plans for the Synthetic Flight Training System (SFTS) for the UH-1H Huey helicopter.
According to that article, the “SFTS will feature the latest state-of-the-art advances in hardware and incorporate the most
ALL SYSTEMS GO PEO STRI’s AVCATT creates a virtual world that provides Soldiers the opportunity to “fly” a number of Army helicopters including the AH-64A Apache, OH-58D Kiowa Warrior, UH-60 Blackhawk, CH-47D Chinook and AH-64D Longbow. (U.S. Army photo by Doug Schaub)
modern training techniques, such as adaptive training, as part of its design concept.” Adaptive training was the big breakthrough in 1970. “In adaptive training,” the article continued, “the problems presented to a student vary as a function, usually, of his immediate past performance. While this is reasonably easy for a skillful teacher to accomplish in a tutorial situation (one instructor to one student), it becomes much more difficult as the student-to-teacher ratio increases.” It would not be long before instruction became automated.
In 1976, the Army introduced the second version of SFTS, devel- oped to train Chinook and Cobra pilots. A March – April 1976 Army Research and Development magazine article described
“dignitaries” as pleased with the new simulator. “Under develop- ment by the Army Training Device Agency, Orlando, FL [now part of Program Executive Office Simulation, Training and Instrumentation], the CH-47 simulator is the second element of the Synthetic Flight Training System, expected to achieve major savings in pilot training and fuel costs. A second system simulates the AH-1Q Cobra helicopter. Both include a computer complex, motion system, cockpits and visual systems.”
Tat’s a long way from the early days of half a barrel with poles. But compare it to today’s Aviation Combined Arms Tactical Trainer (AVCATT), which supports unit collective and combined arms training for the AH-64, UH-60, CH-47 and OH-58 air- craft, and SFTS seems rather quaint. AVCATT can train entire crews. Te Non-Rated Crew Member Manned Module (NCM3), a subsystem of AVCATT, supports training of nonrated crew members in crew coordination, flight, aerial gunnery, hoist and slingload-related tasks.
It’s not hard to imagine that 40 years hence, Soldiers accustomed to environments perhaps similar to that of the “Star Trek” Holo- deck will look back on AVCATT and its NCM3 with the same fondness as we have for the SFTS. But SFTS is not just a memory; it proved to be a critical building block in the Army’s simulated training platform.
For more information on AVCATT, go to
http://www.peostri.
army.mil/products/avcatt/. For a historical tour of AL&T over the past 53 years, go to the Army AL&T magazine archives at http://asc.
army.mil/web/magazine/alt-magazine-archive/.
172
Army AL&T Magazine
July–September 2014
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