A QinetiQ-led team that includes Boeing [BA] May 21 announced it has received a $37.7 million contract from the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence (MoD) to provide Distributed Synthetic Air Land Training (DSALT) to Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots and British Army forward air controllers and artillery personnel.
The four-year contract covers the provision and operation of the DSALT facility at RAF base Waddington in the United Kingdom.
Under the contract sponsored by the Royal Air Force, project lead QinetiQ and Boeing will together help provide approximately 44 weeks of access to specialist training at the facility each year.
The primary users will be headquarters-level fire-planning cells, frontline fire-support teams and RAF pilots, all experiencing the complexities of controlling aircraft, artillery and other assets in fast-moving situations.
“With recent technological advancements, we are now able to deliver synthetic training that realistically simulates actual engagement situations,” Jon Saltmarsh, QinetiQ’s program director for the project, said. “A real benefit of this form of training is that ground forces gain understanding of the pilot’s perspective of a mission, and vice versa. Communications between all parties are improved, operations run more smoothly and there’s less chance of error.”
QinetiQ will be responsible for ensuring the facility meets technical specifications and ongoing customer requirements. Initially, this will involve ruggedizing the capability demonstrator, which has already successfully proven the concept to the MoD. Boeing will be responsible for the day-to-day operation of the training systems used for planning and for delivery of the post-exercise review.
The RAF, supported by Inzpire, acting as consultants to the U.K. military, will also provide personnel with recent in-theater experience to take on various key roles within the exercises.
“Boeing and QinetiQ continue to develop an appropriate, robust, rugged and reliable training facility that will meet the U.K. forces’ need for integrated land-air training now and into the future,” George German, DSALT program manager for Boeing, said.
The DSALT facility is a key element of the Air Battlespace Training Centre, a partnership between the RAF and industry to improve the training of U.K. frontline forces. The DSALT facility can also be linked to a variety of simulated or live air, land or maritime assets around the world to further enhance the training. The possibility also exists to develop deployed training facilities elsewhere in the United Kingdom or overseas, thereby increasing the value and availability of this specialized training.