Navy F-35s can’t play well with others, so the service is betting big on sims
The service is bringing its hyper-realistic Joint Simulation Environment to more bases.
Lauren C. Williams | December 12, 2024
Navy Training & Simulation I/ITSEC
ORLANDO, Fla.—The Navy’s most advanced fighter jets can’t partake in a key aspect of modern tactical training: “injecting” distant or even imaginary aircraft into their systems so aviators can practice scenarios too difficult or costly to arrange in real life.
“The fact that we can get the F/A-18s, the EA-18s, and the E-2Ds all into the inject-to-live environment, and they can fight together on the range is fantastic,” Capt. Andrew Mariner, deputy commander of Naval Air Warfare Development Center, said at the I/ITSEC conference here last week. “But I bet you can guess who doesn't play still: can't get the F-35s to see the same thing synthetically that the rest of the air wing can see. So if I have F-35s at [Naval Air Station Fallon, Nevada], they can't play when I do the inject-to-live.”
That’s a problem. The Navy—along with the rest of the Pentagon—is increasingly relying on this kind of live-virtual-constructive training.
“The ability to inject constructive pictures into live aircraft in the air…it's exploded,” said Chris Boyle, who directs LVC training and technology for Fleet Forces Command. “Last year, we flew 20,000 constructive sorties across the Navy. Think about it. Twenty thousand sorties were just constructively generated and pushed out into the air.”
https://www.defenseone.com/defense-systems/2024/12/navys-betting-big-f-35-sims/401633/?oref=d1-homepage-top-story
