The Air Combat Simulator, or ACS, is a sophisticated, self-contained, and secure simulation center located near the flight line at Lockheed martin’sF/A-22 manufacturing facility in Marietta, Georgia. Built in 2000, the ACS was originally developed as a software laboratory and was used to test the overall user-friendliness of the raptor’s cockpit.

The Air Force later expanded the facility’s charter and now will use the ACS to evaluate F/A-22 mission effectiveness, particularly during the F/A-22’s upcoming Initial Operational Test and Evaluation phase. The capabilities of the ACS are so extensive that the number of operational flights planned for IOT&E has been reduced from more than 700 to just 240. The reduction saves money and alleviates schedule pressure on the four F/A-22s in the primary IOT&E fleet.

“The ACS provides the Air Force an affordable and unparalleled capability for Raptor pilots to develop and refine operational tactics,” notes Cam Catts, a former Air Force F-15C pilot and director of the ACS. “The ACS allows pilots to fly realistic, high-threat combat missions that are impossible to replicate in actual flights on normal training ranges. Independent Air Force and government intelligence agencies verify the performance of every part of the simulation, so the results can be used in government evaluation reports.”

“This complex is designed to show pilots how to be tactically effective with the Raptor,” adds Ron Morishige (More-is-she-gee), the ACS test operations lead. “The primary role of the ACS now, though, is to support IOT&E. We’re helping the F/A-22 move from flight test to the battlefield.”

Really Close To The Real Thing

While the ACS is more than the sum of its parts, one of its primary roles is to train F/A-22 pilots to employ the fighter more effectively. Only the cockpit in an actual Raptor has more realism than the four manned simulators that occupy the Raptor Room. “The simulator doesn’t have the motion, feel, and vibration of the aircraft, but it gives a tactical sense of the mission,” says Derek “Bo” Meyer, a former F-15C fighter weapons instructor pilot who helped design the Raptor’s cockpit several years ago and who now is one of the ACS instructor pilots.

“We essentially replicate the aircraft’s cockpit,” notes Morishige, a former F-4 pilot. “We use a combination of mostly non-flightworthy and some flightworthy hardware. The same manufacturer makes the parts as the ones on the aircraft, but the simulator hardware doesn’t go through the same rigorous quality control processes, so the cost is less.”

The operational flight program, the software that operates the systems in the aircraft, also runs the ground-based hardware. The capabilities of the Raptor’s advanced integrated avionics suite (including the radar; electronic warfare; and communication, navigation, and identification suites) are also replicated with high fidelity in the simulation. “The OFP in the simulator is about ninety percent of what is in the cockpit,” Morishige says. “We normally install the avionics OFP a couple of months before the flight test aircraft get it.” ACS and avionics design personnel find any display software problems and then verify the fixes before the software reaches the aircraft in many cases. A mini-ACS has been set up at the Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB, California, to familiarize test pilots and flight test engineers with the OFP. Refinement to the plan and simulator rehearsal flights have increased efficiency and reduced errors in the very expensive-to-run open-air flight profiles.

The F/A-22 simulator domes take their nickname, WASPs, from an elaborate visual system. The Wide Angle Single (Eye) Point system visuals are rear-projected onto multiple screens to provide the pilot with a 360-degree globe. “The system gives pilots everything they could possibly see out of the cockpit,” says Meyer. “We can present a representative time of day, weather, contrails, other aircraft, missiles, you name it. We can also realistically simulate any geographical location in the world thanks to an extensive database of satellite imagery.”

It’s All Inside

The complex’s second purpose is testing the performance of what is actually installed in an F/A-22 in a realistic combat environment.

Air combat is five decades beyond a fighter pilot and a wingman finding and squaring off against adversaries within visual range. For decades, airborne and ground-based controllers have played a key role in building the overall battlefield picture. They monitor hundreds of square miles of territory and provide real-time tactical information to fighter pilots. The ACS is no different, with ground-controlled intercept radar, airborne warning and control system, and adversary air defense simulation stations in physically separated rooms for both the Blue Force (friendlies) and the opposing Red Force (threats).

The major difference between current-generation fighters and the F/A-22 is avionics. Integrated displays enable the F/A-22 pilot to have full situational awareness so the aircraft can be employed most effectively. A Raptor pilot can usually avoid a visual fight by capitalizing on the airplane’s small radar cross section, ability to supercruise, and active long-range missiles.

The other Blue Force pilots—those who do not get to sit in the Raptor cockpits during a mission—and their Red Force adversaries sit at the facility’s ten generic cockpits, which can be configured to be just about any fighter aircraft. Each of these manned interactive control stations has two computer screens that represent the pilot’s out-the-window view and that aircraft’s instrument panel. The control stations have a generic sidestick controller and touch screen displays. The computer increases the numbers of both forces during mass raid simulations. But as real pilots get shot down, they can take control of one of the remaining computer-controlled aircraft.

The instructors, called the White Force, sit in an Olympus-like control room, with banks of screens that repeat everything that happens in each of the cockpits and display the overall battle. With six monitors per aircraft, the instructors see everything. The elaborate computer system not only allows for real-time, three-dimensional monitoring of the simulation, it also allows the instructors’ view to be adjusted to any point in the battle space and attached to any aircraft, missile, or fixed ground position.

The White Force, which is the only group that can go into both the Red and Blue Force areas, is run by the test team from the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center, headquartered at Kirtland AFB, New Mexico.

The participants gather to review the mission once it is over. “Our operational debrief system is better than the one on the aircraft,” Meyer notes. “We can replay the entire mission from takeoff to landing. Not much is hidden.”

Fight’s On

Before the capabilities of the ACS can be fully exploited by trained F/A-22 pilots, someone must train F/A-22 pilots. “We are the only game in town right now,” notes Morishige. “The IOT&E pilot cadre came through here, and the first two operational pilot classes will, too. After that, F/A-22 pilot training will shift to the 325th Fighter Wing at Tyndall in Florida.”

After an introductory academic course taught by instructors from contractor team partner Boeing, soon-to-be F/A-22 pilots come to the ACS. The simulator syllabus goes from avionics briefings, to basic flying, to instruments and approaches, to night flying, to close-in and beyond-visual-range intercepts, and air combat maneuvering. “We can conduct single-ship, two-ship-versus-many, and even four-ship engagements,” says Catts. “F/A-22 pilots have to learn how to sort through a vast amount of information and how to manage their radar cross section. They get that training here.”

“We’re getting the top pilots with many years and many hours in fighters,” notes Meyer. “They are going to be the ones with the core knowledge of the F/A-22.” The first IOT&E pilot class, held earlier this year, completed its training two days early, so the pilots then started developing the first four-ship tactics for high-value airborne asset protection and attack missions under the Global Strike Task Force construct.

“Tactics used to be developed over a long period of time,” Morishige explains. “The Air Force learned to use the F-15 by flying it out on the test range, through dedicated tests, and eventually, from practical experience. Our efforts with the ACS will result in a much sharper learning curve on the F/A-22.”

The F/A-22’s system-level performance, like that of every other new combat aircraft, will be verified on open-air test ranges. However, the ACS will complement this traditional testing with a system that offers some clear advantages: unlimited airspace and geography, controllable weather, more realistic surface-to-air missile launches, greater availability of surface-to-air radars, and many-versus-many aircraft-to-aircraft engagements. More specifically, the ACS allows for up to 100 each air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles in flight (and 380 missile launch sites), realistic threat integrated air defense systems, electronic countermeasures and electronic counter-countermeasures, atmospheric and terrain effects, and a realistic airspace size. Projected threats can be added as they become known.

“The biggest advantage, though, is cost,” says Meyer. “Savings translate into effectiveness. For the price of one open-air test, we can perform countless simulator runs and accumulate a huge database of tactically pertinent information. In fact, AFOTEC plans to fly more than 1,000 missions in the ACS during their operations here. Open-air testing is transitioning from a principal source of hard data to a tool used to validate data derived from a simulator. Technical advances, like those found in the ACS, make this possible.”

Jeff Rhodes is the associate editor of Code One.