Proving yet again that Inzpire is at the forefront of Whole Force collaborative working, our Synthetic Training Division recently headed the delivery a ground-breaking distributed training event from the Air Battlespace Training Centre, RAF Waddington.
Utilising a temporary connection between the ABTC and the Royal Navy’s synthetic training centre, the Maritime Composite Training System at HMS Collingwood, the Inzpire and military White Force provided vital pre-deployment training to HMS DEFENDER, a Type 45 Destroyer.
Inzpire delivered team and collective training simultaneously to crews from the Typhoon, Tornado GR-4, E-3D, Royal Navy AEW Sea King forces as well as HMS DEFENDER’s ops team. This is the first time this has been accomplished in the UK.
Exercise VIRTUAL FURY was designed and led by one of our Control of the Air subject matter experts, retired Royal Navy fighter pilot Richard Tattersall. The week long exercise provided exposure to real world complex Air, Land and Maritime challenges that cannot be achieved in the ‘live fly’ environment.
HMS DEFENDER’s team were integrated seamlessly into the distributed exercise and were able to work alongside their RAF and FAA colleagues, planning and briefing each mission, then executing and debriefing across a distributed network.
Building upon Inzpire’s wealth of experience in the distributed training arena, Exercise VIRTUAL FURY broke new ground, providing the first opportunity to deliver maritime PDT from the ABTC, by ensuring the participants were fully integrated into exercise design and that the exercise was delivered effectively across a wide area network.
Richard Tattersall explained: “From contract signature to exercise delivery was just 4 weeks; the tech teams and the White Force at both training centres worked as a single team to make Virtual Fury happen. I was hugely impressed with what was achieved in such a short timeline: it was a great example of the Whole Force Concept in full flow.
Watching the complex scenarios unfold exactly as we had planned across the distributed network, hitting all the disparate training objectives was very satisfying. Indeed, the feedback from participants was excellent: Flag Officer Sea Training staff were 'deeply impressed' and CO HMS DEFENDER described the event as ‘a fundamental part of (his) team's work-up activity".
Exercise VIRTUAL FURY will restart once again at the end of November.
Our image shows just one of the networked simulators used during training at the ABTC. ©Garryridsdale.com
To find out more about our Synthetic Training Division, please click here
