The U.S. Air Force Air Education and Training Command (AETC) at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, Texas wants a small business to provide sustainment support for the Air Combat Training System (ACTS).
ACTS’ mission “is to provide an integrated realistic training environment in support of on-site and off-site aircrew/ground support crew training,” according to a business notice. “ACTS is a computer-based data communication and tracking network comprised of data and voice communication circuits, computer hardware, computer software, electronic circuity, and electromechanical devices. The required services include operation, maintenance, sustainment, technical support, and continuous minor technical updates for ACTS, subsystems and ancillary equipment at Luke AFB, Ariz., Gila Bend Auxiliary Field, Ariz. and Holloman AFB, N.M., in order to keep abreast of current and new real-world threats.”
Small businesses wishing to bid have an annual revenue limit of $37 million.
“The need for continued service will enable the ACTS mission to keep abreast of real-world threats through cutting edge training, operation, maintenance, sustainment, and technical support for ACTS,” AETC said. “The environment to support ACTS takes place on ranges operated on federal installations with numerous military components. The ACTS services required are not of the type offered and/or sold competitively in substantial quantities in the commercial markets. The commercial industry has not developed the unique combination of skill sets required to support, operate, and maintain an active live fire military range.”
Cubic Corp. has been providing its P5 Combat Training System (P5CTS) for the Lockheed Martin [LMT] F-35 Lightning II fighter’s Air Combat Maneuvering Instrumentation (ACMI) system, and Leonardo DRS has had a subcontract with Cubic to provide P5CTS internal subsystems (IS) (Defense Daily, June 24, 2021).
The Air Force has been looking to correct cybersecurity shortfalls in P5CTS pods on older F-16 and F-15 fighters through a System Security Upgrade (SSU). The SSU replaces the P5CTS Data Guard Processor with a National Security Agency-certified Type 1 encryption device.
The older F-16s and F-15s have a wing-mounted flight training airborne subsystem (AS) pod, and the cybersecurity remedy will likely be important for secure data exchange between those aircraft, other fourth-generation aircraft, and the F-35s, which carry the IS–an internal version of the system.
“The P5 System Security Update provides a field modification to existing P5 pods to provide encrypted ACMI to the USAF for <10% of the cost of alternatives,” Cubic Corp. said last month. “Cubic is on contract to provide this upgrade with fielding planned in 2024. P5 SSU pods are directly compatible with Cubic’s F-35 P5 internal subsystem providing untethered level II integration. Cubic has delivered over 1,000 F-35 P5 IS and remains the only Air Combat Training System option available. The fielding of P5 SSU in combination with P5 IS enables a new level of training integration between fourth- and fifth-generation aircraft, as well as protection of Air Force tactics, techniques and procedures at home station or abroad.”
During training sorties, wing-mounted P5CTS pods for non-stealth aircraft–and the internal F-35 system–are to display the live-air picture, record mission data, aid weapons engagements, and relay time, space, and position information among aircraft.
In September 2020 the Air Force awarded Cubic a $193.3 million contract to continue support through September 2027 for almost 1,000 P5CTS Airborne Subsystems and range infrastructure at more than 20 Air Force bases and training ranges, as well as support for the use of P5CTS by allied countries, including the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Australia, Egypt, Morocco, and Singapore.
Cubic has said that all F-35s have the P5 IS for the provision of encrypted ACMI for U.S. and allied forces to train on a common ACMI platform.
Cubic received the initial P5CTS contract in 2003 and delivered its first wing-mounted P5CTS pods for Air Force F-16s in 2006.
The Navy and Air Force created their “Top Gun” and Tactical Fighter Weapons School, respectively, in response to aircrew training shortfalls the services said they saw during the Vietnam War, including shortfalls presented in the Navy’s Ault Report in 1968.
Now the services may move out on a new air combat training system.
While the Air Force uses P5CTS, the Navy and Marine Corps have used the Cubic Corp. Tactical Combat Training System (TCTS).
In 2020, the Air Force joined the Department of the Navy effort to field follow-on training systems, based upon the Navy’s TCTS Increment II system by RTX‘s [RTX] Collins Aerospace and Leonardo. The Air Force system is to be called P6CTS.