Marine Corps Strives to Consolidate Aviation Training

Systems Compatibility, Faster Technology Upgrades Are Goals of New Center

By MARGARET ROTH
Special Correspondent

The Marine Corps is confronting the dual realities of tight budgets and rapidly advancing flight technology by making fundamental changes in its training structure and processes.

Marine officials are developing the concept for an aviation training center that would comprise all aviation training systems under a single support umbrella. The goal is to keep simulator training up to date, make it as efficient as possible and get simulators to work together for combined training, said Lt. Col. Greg Horton, systems integration requirements coordinator at Marine Corps headquarters in the Pentagon.

In addition, the Marines are following new processes for the procurement of training services and hardware for their newer aircraft.

Traditionally, Marines managing individual aircraft programs within the service have run the Corps' simulator training.

"We have seen traditionally that the flight-hour money is going to go down. We need to start now" to ensure that Marine Corps training systems are top-quality and will "give us the best training capability," Horton said.

Horton and others foresee the possibility of substantial improvements in the training of Marine aviators. Incompatible flight simulators, inconsistent training standards, inappropriate training: All of those problems can be solved if the Corps' new approach works. Consolidation of training systems is underway at Marine Corps Air Station New River, N.C., home to two Marine aircraft groups and an MV-22 Osprey simulator. This consolidated approach eventually will extend to the rest of 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing at air stations in Cherry Point, N.C., and Beaufort, S.C., and then to units on the West Coast as well.

"Typically we have done our training in the most expensive training medium, which has been the aircraft. We can't afford to do that anymore," said Horton. Not only is it much more expensive, it is also much more dangerous, he said. As Marine Lt. Col. Fancher, V-22 training system program manager, explained it: "Put the risk stuff in the simulator. You can always hit reset."

The Corps' consolidated approach to training is embodied in the Marine Aviation Simulation Steering Committee, and it is exemplified by the V-22 simulation training program, based at New River. The first major V-22 Block Upgrade, including changes to the nacelle, hydraulic lines, cockpit instrumentation, and flight controls, "is already installed in the simulators" before the first upgraded aircraft arrives, said Fancher.

The V-22 "is at the leading edge of our simulation change," Fancher said, in making greater use of simulation for training instead of actual flight. "We transitioned from less than 5 percent of the training [for] the aircraft with the CH-46 to greater than 50 percent in the V-22. It's a quantum leap," he said.

"You can't replicate everything in a simulator," said Horton. And simulators have a limited life. "What we've found is, a simulator's going to be a great piece of gear for about three years," he said. Once the aircraft itself is upgraded, the simulation training also needs to change, or safety is compromised.

A case in point, the sort of compelling story that may help in the jostling for funds: An UH-1 Huey helicopter rolled over last year during a brownout in Afghanistan. "The simulator has the capability to teach [how to handle] that. But that particular training system hadn't been updated to provide that capability," Fancher said.

It's impossible to say definitively whether better simulation training could have prevented that accident, or any other mishap, Fancher said. That helps explain why no study has been done, to his knowledge, on whether greater use of simulation results in lower accident rates. But, Fancher said, "Intuitively, people know that's true."

The savings from simulation are measurable, however.

"You're saving a tremendous amount," Fancher said. "A 53-Echo [CH-53E Super Stallion] costs you $1 million to train an initial student. We were doing it for $450,000 in the V-22 program."

The training is not only cheaper, but "more operationally focused . . . enhancing [the pilot's] performance" and faster. "The CH-46 took you 24 weeks to train, we're doing it in 16."

"So, better, faster, cheaper. We're getting all three of those."

These and other improvements are possible, said Horton and Fancher, because of the momentum within the Marine Corps to give simulation training a high priority and thereby greater status in the annual competition for funding. They said credit for that achievement goes to Lt. Gen. Michael A. Hough, deputy commandant for aviation, and the leadership of the V-22 program, including the current program manager, Air Force Col. Craig Olson, and his predecessor, Marine Col. Dan Schultz.

At Hough's direction, Horton and Fancher have borrowed the best practices they can find from industry for the Marine Corps' own simulation efforts.

"We've got a state-of-the-art scheduling system that we didn't invent, we borrowed," Fancher said. "We've got a state-of-the-art curriculum approach that we didn't invent, we borrowed." The support structure concept itself was borrowed. "What we have briefed to our leadership is, let's go with the proven performers and [those] that are in the business of doing the simulators," rather than relying on the aircraft manufacturers, as was the practice in the past, Horton said. "We looked at industry and other services" and assessed their training and simulation processes.

The next step in the consolidated approach to simulation is to achieve better and more extensive networking of simulators, "to tie the West Coast to the East Coast in a virtual environment," Fancher said. Again, it is not the Marine Corps' goal to invent new and better ways to do this, but to harness existing technology.

"We have a philosophy of staying in the center of proven technology," Fancher said. "We're not out there on the edge of the technology envelope."

As to the East-West networking, he said, "We're not there yet," but "the modern technologies are there."

A larger goal is to get in sync with the Navy on simulation training. Each service has its own plan. "We'd like them to embrace the Marines' tactical environment network," incorporating various threats, terrains, and scenarios, Fancher said. Likewise, "We'd like to get on board with their visual databases." Perhaps in three to five years, Fancher said, the two services' aviation training systems will be "on the same sheet of music . . . really positioned well to integrate ourselves into the joint arena."

There is also a need for joint training with the Air Force, but so far it has progressed further for Marine forward air controllers. For aviation, Horton said, "It hasn't gotten much beyond the talk-discussion level," except for the Joint Strike Fighter, because the aircraft is brand-new, and for joint training on the KC-130J tanker.

The question is, how much to spend on simulation, and how best to spend it?

"I think they're right about where they ought to be in the development of aircraft simulation," said Rear Adm. Fred L. Lewis, USN (Ret.), president of the National Training Systems Association in Arlington, Va. "Of course they've been waiting for JSF."

Another force driving the push for more simulation is the Navy-Marine Corps Tactical Air Integration Plan, Lewis said. "As the Marine Corps squadrons are integrated into the Navy units, they will have to go through the training as part of the Navy squadrons."

Overall, valuable flight hours are best saved for advanced training, Horton said.

"We joined the aviation community of the Marine Corps to not fly simulators, but to fly the aircraft and be part of the air-ground combat team, to be able to do what we need to do. But why don't we focus on upper-level training . . . instead of working on a lot of the basic stuff?

"And let's do mission rehearsal in these simulators so we can bring everybody together in an aviation combat element structure, so we have the air guys, we have the ground guys in our combat operations center."

"We're not there yet, but we want to get there. Our vision's right," Horton said.

"Are the fiscal dollars there to support it? Well, that's where we're beating the bushes right now."

Their task will be made somewhat easier because of the new aircraft being delivered to the Marine Corps. It is easier to design and operate a simulator training program with a newer aircraft, such as the V-22 Upgrade, the Joint Strike Fighter and modernized versions of the AH-1W Cobra and the UH-1N Huey, both part of the H-1 Upgrade Program. Simulators can be ready before the aircraft come on line. That leaves the older aircraft­the Harriers, Super Stallions, Cobras­for which it may be more difficult to decide how much to spend on simulation training. These aircraft are more costly to operate, and some will be replaced in the near future.

"We are attempting to cut costs across our different simulation programs by using common-core and previously developed software and hardware across all of our type/model/series programs," Horton said. Common components such as visual displays and tactical environments will also make it easier to get the most out of the simulators, he said.

"Right now is a very busy time" for Marine Corps aviation, Horton said. Over the next five years, the Marines will transition to new platforms for virtually all aviation capabilities.