When Marine pilots take to the air in the F–35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) they will be flying one of the most sophisticated aircraft ever manufactured. Known as a fifth-generation fighter, the F–35 short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) aircraft that Marines will fly is significantly more effective than legacy fighters in all air dominance mission requirements.

The F–35 will be:

• Four times more effective than legacy fighters in air-to-air engagements.
• Eight times more effective than legacy fighters in prosecuting missions against fixed and mobile targets.
• Three times more effective than legacy fighters in nontraditional intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; suppression of enemy air defenses; and destruction of enemy air defenses missions.
• About the same in procurement cost as legacy fighters, but requiring significantly less tanker/transport and infrastructure with a smaller basing footprint.

The single-engine F–35 JSF will be manufactured in three versions: a STOVL version for the U.S. Marine Corps and the United Kingdom Royal Air Force and Royal Navy, a conventional takeoff and landing variant for the U.S. Air Force, and an aircraft carrier version for the U.S. Navy. Lockheed Martin has already started major assemblies on the first three STOVL aircraft, and the F–35 has been selected as a Department of Defense (DoD) pilot program for performance-based logistics—the operation, support, and sustainment model that shows great promise for driving down aircraft ownership costs while improving availability.

But the ultimate success of the F–35 is dependent on the knowledge and skills of the pilots who will fly it and the mechanics who will maintain it. The F–35 program includes 13 Services, 9 countries, and 3 aircraft variants—all with one training system. Designing a common, affordable training system for all users is the ultimate challenge for the government and contractor F–35 training system team. This single training solution for all users must be capable of producing mission-qualified maintainers with the skills and knowledge to support this fifth-generation fighter.

Background
Let’s take a quick look at the profile of who will be a typical Marine Corps F–35 maintainer in the future.

• Right now, he is in elementary or middle school.
• His introduction to computers started at birth, and he is totally computer literate and effortlessly interacts in the cyberworld.
• His world is driven by computers in the home and school.
• A good deal of his entertainment allowance is spent on computerized games and gadgets.

These young people—our future Marines—are more computer-savvy than many people on active duty today. They expect that the systems they support and maintain will take full advantage of computer capabilities. F–35 maintainers will also need to be capable of learning in a dynamic environment—multitasking, critical analysis performance, and group tasks.

Figure 1.

Current Status
The F–35 training program is currently in the system design and development (SDD) phase. This phase allows development of the maintainer training syllabus through a comprehensive analysis of all maintenance tasks associated with operational employment of the air vehicle. (A review of maintenance tasks and associated training for the AV–8B and F/A–18 was included in the analysis.) The result is a complete list of maintainer training requirements for the F–35 that can be processed into a syllabus and assessed against available delivery techniques and media technology. This analysis approach is called instructional systems development (ISD). The F–35 training syllabus will include instructions and applied exercises throughout an individual’s career. Knowledge will be gained during formal cognitive lessons and self-study, while skills will be honed through instruction while practicing psychomotor functions. Analysis also shows that the JSF training system needs to be inherently capable of supporting training at operational sites both ashore and at sea.

The SDD phase also includes design and development of the integrated training system that will deliver training to maintainers throughout the F–35 life cycle. Figure 1 depicts the operational concept for the F–35 training system. The training system consists of four major components—training devices, courseware, training infrastructure and training management systems, and the integrated training center (ITC).

Figure 2.

Training devices. Training devices take advantage of advanced technologies and provide hands-on experience in simulated environments. Ninety percent reuse of aircraft operational software guarantees concurrency between training devices and aircraft while significantly reducing costs. The growth of common technology in design of pilot and maintainer simulations has resulted in a single software architecture for a family of training devices that further reduces cost. The maintainer training devices suite currently consists of three types—aircraft systems maintenance trainer (ASMT), ejection system maintenance trainer (ESMT), and weapons loading trainer (WLT). (See Figure 2.)

The ASMT consists of eight student stations that will provide desktop training for maintenance and repair of air vehicle systems. This trainer uses advanced visual model depictions of systems, access panels, diagnostic and status displays, and equipment bays on desktop monitors. It will be used to teach fault isolation/detection, remove/replace procedures, operational/functional checks, and maintenance task rehearsal. Diagnostic and repair actions will be through mouse or touch-screen interfaces. No cockpit or airframe hardware will be replicated. Multiple stations within an ASMT may be networked to provide team training and rehearsal.

The ESMT simulates the cockpit environment for training canopy and ejection seat removal, maintenance, repair, and installation. The canopy will be a functional, geometrically correct simulation of all JSF variant canopies. A second seat external to the cockpit will allow detailed seat maintenance training.

The WLT provides weapons loading training for individuals or teams. The trainer is comprised of dimensionally correct replications of a weapons bay and wing section including weapon load points.

The JSF STOVL on the runway. (Photo courtesy of Lockheed Martin.)

Courseware. Courseware is provided in electronic format and can be either mediated by an instructor in an electronic classroom or be student interactive in a computer resource center. The F–35 courseware suite is comprised of multiple maintainer lessons accessible via the F–35 autonomic logistics information system. Courseware employs a modular approach (called scalable content object reusable model) to create courseware materials, electronic mediated lecture media, and student/instructor guides. This approach saves money by allowing modules to be reused across pilot and maintainer courses, while also ensuring that configuration updates for training are less expensive and easier to manage. There may be instances when a maintainer will need access to courseware at his own convenience for the purpose of review. To satisfy this need, elements of the training system can be accessed from a home base or from deployed locations on an informal “on-demand” basis.

TIS/TMS. The training infrastructure system (TIS) provides information/data control and management for the training system components and instructor/student personnel. The TIS is made up of two subcomponents, the training system support center (TSSC) and the training management system (TMS). The TSSC is a major contributor to cost savings by providing design and configuration management for software architecture and hardware components in both pilot and maintainer training devices, ensuring configuration accuracy and reducing update time and cost. The TSSC also uses a unique courseware module identifier to track module content for configuration management and to allow updates to ripple through courseware across aircraft variants and pilot and maintainer domains.

The TMS manages and schedules training system resources, including instructors, and can forecast demands on these resources. For the student, the TMS manages the training syllabus, maintains training plans, monitors student training progress, updates electronic training jackets, aids with student evaluations, and reports training system performance.

JSF logo. (Courtesy of Lockheed Martin.)

ITC. The ITC is the facility where all of the above components are integrated and brought together. The ITC schoolhouse is a government-owned, contractor-operated facility with a mix of contractor and government instructors. The ITC includes a collocated training squadron to handle aircraft operations. To reduce costs, the ITC provides integrated training for both pilots and maintainers in the same facilities. This approach is not new to the U.S. Marine Corps but is a foreign concept for other U.S. Services and partner countries. After completion of training at the ITC, maintainers continue training in operational squadrons with continued access to the training system. Marines will join others in the DoD at Eglin Air Force Base, FL, which has been selected as the site for the first ITC and is scheduled to begin Air Force training in October 2009.

The F–35 training system delivers various types of formal training that is specific to each phase of an individual’s career—initial qualification training, transition training, refresher training, continuation training.

Initial qualification training is conducted at the ITC and is designed for students who have completed the appropriate Service-specific lead-in course but have no operational experience in military strike fighter aircraft. This syllabus is the most comprehensive and requires the longest time to train.

Transition training is conducted at the ITC and is designed for students who have operational experience in military strike fighter aircraft other than the F–35. An example of a transition student is an AV–8B Harrier experienced avionics technician receiving orders to go to an F–35 squadron. The majority of both initial and transition training occurs in the ITC schoolhouse environment. However, the final portion of initial and transition training for maintainers occurs in the operational squadron environment and includes some level of on-the-job training.

Refresher training occurs at the ITC and is designed for students who have previously completed the F–35 initial or transition course and require training to regain F–35 knowledge and skills that decayed during a non-F–35 tour of duty. Refresher training will also provide system capability/performance upgrade training.

Continuation training occurs after completion of initial, transition, or refresher training. Continuation training takes place in the operational squadron and is designed to maintain individual readiness qualifications and prevent skills decay, but this training will also enhance skill levels through repetition and practice. Continuation training may also include those modules of formal training that are required for aircraft upgrades.

The F–35 training system also caters to the needs of the student by varying the format of the instructional environment. These formats are categorized as individualized, group, and team training.

Individualized training is the most fundamental form of training as it allows each student and/or instructor to determine the pace, start time, amount, and type of instruction based on individual goals or objectives. The customized nature of this training makes it very effective but can also require a high instructor-student ratio, such as a training device event with one student and one instructor. Interactive courseware lessons also follow this format and allow the student to control the pace, spending more time on areas of difficulty but completing the lessons within the scheduled time frame.

Cutaway of the JSF. (Photo courtesy of Lockheed Martin.)

Group training is instructor centered with fixed periods of instruction. All class members or small groups are instructed on the same task at the same time. An example of group training is a traditional classroom session or an electronic mediated lecture event.

Team training is instruction and/or applied exercises that prepare an organizational team to accomplish required tasks as a unit. An example of team training is an event that accomplishes a unit task, such as a weapons load where each member of the team fulfills a particular role in completing that task.

A Look Ahead
Development of the F–35 training system faces challenges never before encountered by other aircraft programs. Designing a single, affordable solution for use by 9 countries and 13 military Services is a daunting task. The F–35 team has taken on this challenge by utilization of ISD analysis of tasks to be trained and the best media to train those tasks to ensure a comprehensive syllabus, by use of state-of-the-art technology to ensure improved learning for less cost, and by reuse of software/hardware/design architecture wherever possible to ensure configuration control and reduced costs.

Marine F–35 pilots of the future will be flying one of the most sophisticated aircraft ever manufactured. Those who maintain the aircraft will be working with sophisticated computer systems unheard of with today’s legacy aircraft. The Marines of tomorrow will defend freedom with an aircraft that is part jet and part computer—but it will be the most lethal weapons systems ever built.

>Col Jackson, Maj Ratliff, and MSgt Quillin are members of the Lockheed Martin F–35 training system team based in Fort Worth, TX.

 

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