Ramona Adams
Thales has connected flight simulators for Tornado aircraft at the British air force’s bases in Lossiemouth and Marham under a self-funded initiative.
The company said Friday it provided the building, engineers, instructors, administration staff, classroom facilities and desktop training systems as well as two flight simulators at RAF Lossiemouth and one at RAF Marham under a private financial initiative agreement.
Amit Talati, Thales head of technical and product line management, said two simulators at RAF Lossiemouth are already linked through local area network to support joint training, and Thales worked to securely connect the simulator at RAF Marham using wide area classified network.
Talati added that the project seeks to reflect real-life missions, where aircraft that need to work together could be launched from different airbases.
The connected simulators are designed to help flight instructors introduce a range of scenarios such as air-to-air refueling of multiple aircraft, through the addition of synthetically-generated air, land and maritime threats, according to Talati.
David Bolsover, Thales head of U.K. military training services, said the company aims to link simulators in various NATO member nations to support training for multinational missions.
