The Inzpire Team embedded within the RAF’s Air Battlespace Training Centre (ABTC), RAF Waddington, have successfully delivered training in the form of the UK’s most complex distributed synthetic Exercise, Exercise RED KITE.
This iteration of the Exercise, delivered over two weeks in May 2017, saw the most trainee participants and widest distributed location of sites since its inception in 2013. These included Canadian CF-18 pilots flying simulators at the Canadian Air Warfare Centre, Trenton; MC-130 crews from Hurlburt Field AFB in Florida; C-17 crews in their simulators at Dover and Charleston AFBs on the US East coast and MQ-9, F-16CMs and EA-18Gs being flown by subject matter experts (SMEs) at the United States Air Force Europe (USAFE) Warrior Preparation Centre in Germany. In the UK, Typhoon pilots from No 6 and 11 Squadrons flew the simulators at the ABTC along with crews from No 8 Squadron, E-3D with rear crew SMEs from No 51 Sqn Rivet Joint providing real time support. In addition, the Royal Navy connected their Type 45 Destroyer ops room simulator from their Maritime Composite Training System at HMS Collingwood which was manned by ops teams from HMS Duncan in week 1 and HMS Diamond in week 2. Finally No 849 Sqn, UK Sea King ASaC, connected from their simulator at RNAS Culdrose.
The Exercise provided participants with tactical war-fighter training in a representative real-world scenario which was developed and led by Inzpire personnel. The Exercise incorporated potent, modern threat systems with associated complex rules of engagement with the standard military mantra of train hard - fight easy.
Inzpire personnel were tasked with leading and managing the operations aspects of the Exercise including developing the scenario to meet the plethora of individual unit training requirements. Successfully integrating a mix of Tactical Air Lift, 4th Gen fighter aircraft, RAF C2 and Royal Navy capabilities with different aims, SOPs, and capabilities was a significant challenge.
Andy Fisher, the Exercise Management Officer remarked:
“The Air Battlespace Training Centre prides itself in meeting individual’s training needs in a collective synthetic environment. Exercise RED KITE required a complex scenario in order to keep all participants challenged throughout the Exercise execute period. We worked closely with the Technical Teams, led by QinetiQ, to provide the air and land picture with the Royal Navy providing the maritime picture. This blend of expertise brought a complex, challenging and rich battlespace. The whole team (ops and tech) were outstanding and this resulted in the Exercise being a great success with plenty of praise from connected trainees. The future of synthetic training will be distributed and we are leading the way in developing this cutting edge training”.
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