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Flying into the future: fixed-wing training aircraft
Technological developments and customer requirements are transforming the fixed-wing training aircraft sector. Tim Ripley reports
Air forces around the world are all struggling to reconcile declining procurement, personnel and flight operations budgets, rapid changes in tactical requirements and nearly uncontrollable technological advances.
Nowhere are these issues more acute than in the development and procurement of new-generation fixed-wing training aircraft and services.
The introduction into frontline service of advanced fourth-generation fighter aircraft - the Eurofighter Typhoon, Saab Gripen and Dassault Rafale classes - means that continuing to use analogue-era training aircraft in a digital century is proving to be a false economy.
Over the next decade most advanced air forces hope to see programmes to recapitalise their fixed-wing training aircraft fleets and infrastructure come to fruition, making them fully compatible with current generations of combat aircraft.
Training aircraft are now almost always purchased to be part of an end-to-end training system, which means air forces rarely consider an aircraft purchase in isolation from the other elements of the system to ensure they are all compatible.
These end-to-end systems link together every phase of the training pipeline, from initial pilot selection, through basic flying training to conversion-to-type training. They comprise paperless courseware (which student pilots can work with on their own laptop computers and use to interact with computer-based-class rooms), part-task trainers and full-motion flight simulators. Overarching these training devices is computerised personnel management technology that allows a student's performance to be recorded and assessed throughout his or her flying career.
Training 21st-century aircrew to be combat ready is a complex and expensive business. It is no longer the case that modern air warriors just need to be taught how to fly their aircraft. The pilot of today has to be able to operate complex weapon systems that are increasingly seen as nodes in multinational digital communications networks.
Air forces around the world are looking to train their aircrew to absorb, analyse and react to huge quantities of data being delivered to their aircraft by a multitude of information pipes. One senior NATO officer involved in design aircrew training courses said alliance air forces were now viewing their aircrew as "information managers" rather than just pilots and weapon systems operations.
Many air forces are increasingly facing the problem that the capabilities of their frontline aircraft are now far in advance of those of their training aircraft.
This means that many of the skills essential to operate 21st-century aircraft are having to be taught in frontline units on expensive-to-fly operational aircraft rather than in an air force's training regime.
Not surprisingly, air forces are keen to reverse this trend. The buzzword for this phenomenon is 'downloading': the transfer of training back along the pipeline to less expensive phases of the student's course.
The most revolutionary advance in simulation technology in the past decade has been the development of so-called embedded simulation in trainer aircraft.
This allows the simulation of sensor inputs and weapon engagements during flight and potentially offers huge savings to air forces that no longer have to expend live ordnance or organise large-scale air training exercises. This technology is at the heart of many air forces' push to drive out cost from their training systems. The UK, for example, will use the embedded simulation technology on its soon-to-be-introduced BAE Systems Hawk Mk 128 advanced jet trainer (AJT) to eliminate the dropping of live ordnance from the advanced phase of its fast jet pilot training.
The evolution of beyond-visual-range (BVR) weapons and the sensors that support them means the experience of firing a live weapon no longer has the significance it had in the past. Aircrew operating these weapons and sensors conduct the whole engagement via computer-driven sensors that can now easily be replicated in simulation devices. The advent of software-driven synthetic radars and electro-optical sensors has helped this trend as they can be emulated, with mock engagements portrayed on sensor displays to the same level of fidelity and realism as the real thing.
Faking it
Synthetic radar, electro-optical sensors, software driven-electronic counter-measures and BVR missiles can all have simulated inputs inserted into training aircraft with relative ease. Boeing, BAE Systems, BVR, Lockheed Martin and Galileo Avionica are all active in this market to field these systems on the latest versions of the T-45, Hawk, T-50, M-311 and M-346 aircraft respectively.
Typical of these programmes is the US Navy's plan to purchase an embedded training system for its fleet of Boeing/BAE Systems T-45 Goshawk trainers. The T-45 Virtual Mission Training System being developed by Boeing will be used to train Undergraduate Military Flying Officers (UMFOs) or back-seat weapon-system operators in radar and weapon operation. The service is retiring its multicrew T-39 trainer aircraft and in the future UMFOs will do their radar training in a two-seat T-45 aircraft, with their instructors managing training activities from a ground station.
This rate of technological advance is expected to continue, possibly even at a faster pace. Embedded simulation devices will gain more widespread usage, allowing the linkage of the virtual and live worlds in an increasing number of training events. Training for aircrew will become a seamless continuum of virtual and live events.
Training military pilots is an expensive business. The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has quoted the cost of training a UK fast jet pilot up to entry into an operational conversion unit as being nearly USD3 million. Training a helicopter pilot costs the UK taxpayer nearly USD750,000 while training a multi-engine aircraft pilot is said to cost USD600,000.
These costs are not just measured in payment for aircraft fuel and the salaries of flying instructors but also the huge capital costs that are needed to buy modern aircraft, flight simulators, instructional facilities, accommodation and airfield infrastructure.
These capabilities are beyond the financial resources of many air arms. For that reason, many nations have looked to join forces to share the running and capital costs of setting up military flying training centres. This is creating a major dynamic in the flying training aircraft market, with aircraft increasingly not being purchased by individual air forces but by private companies with contracts to run such centres or partnerships of several air forces working together. As a result procurement can be more complex and take several years longer than would be the case with solely national procurements.
Further, not all nations have the financial ability to acquire and operate their own fleets of primary, basic, advanced and lead-in fighter trainers, plus training helicopters and multi-engined platforms. This reality has opened the door to innovative contracting arrangements with industry or participation in multinational training systems now available in abundance in the Western world.
The largest example of the latter arrangement now in existence is the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training (ENJJPT) scheme, which has been delivering services at Sheppard Air Force Base (AFB) in Texas since the signature of a memorandum of understanding in 1981. ENJJPT is currently contracted to operate until at least September 2016.
Backed by 13 signatory nations - not all of which currently send students to train on the system - ENJJPT is described as a multinational system with US participation, rather than a buy-in to US Air Force (USAF) training.
The school is currently undergoing a reorganisation, which will provide more contemporary instruction and a fairer cost structure for partner nations. Other enhancements being introduced include an avionics upgrade to the school's supersonic Northrop T-38 Talons - more than 124 of which were being brought up to the enhanced T-38C standard - and use of the Raytheon (now Beechcraft) T-6A Texan II, currently being introduced to replace the school's 1970s-era Cessna T-37 platforms by the end of 2009.
The US Navy, meanwhile, offers international partners use of its pilot training system, with students from nations including Brazil, France, India, Italy and Spain currently using its T-45A/C Goshawk carrier trainers.
Winging it
Set up by the Canadian Forces in partnership with prime contractor Bombardier, the NATO Flying Training in Canada (NFTC) scheme is now in its eighth year of operation. It has some 24 T-6A Harvard IIs and 18 BAE Systems Hawk 115s, which had amassed a combined 130,000 hours by late 2007.
The current development of the Canada Wings system, delivered by the Allied Wings consortium, will also offer access to other nations to perform training for crews of transport aircraft and helicopters. The industry-supported system will eventually comprise nine Grob G120A primary trainers, seven Bell 206 and nine Bell 412 helicopters, nine Raytheon King Air C90B multi-engine trainers and use of the Canadian Forces' Bombardier Dash 8 navigation trainers.
A European staff requirement for the Eurotraining - or Advanced European Jet Pilot Training (AEJPT) - programme was agreed in June 2007 but the current partner nations - Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Sweden - have to yet to finalise the deal, begin buying aircraft and establishing a main operating base. The aim is to begin training 10 pilots a year from 2015.
The programme - originally conceived with the support of 17 nations - lost the participation of Germany and Switzerland early on. Meanwhile EADS' Mako high-energy advanced trainer design was rejected as a candidate airframe and Switzerland placed a domestic order for six Pilatus PC-21s to bridge the gap to its F/A-18C/D fighters.
Alenia Aermacchi's M-346 is considered the lead candidate for the Eurotraining system, although a basic trainer could also be acquired during the programme's future development and production phase. The programme's senior steering committee member, Colonel Wolfgang Luttenberger of the Austrian Air Force, believes the system could be established using two or three sites around Europe, with eight bases still in contention. Portugal's Beja airbase has been assessed as the only facility capable of meeting all system requirements, Col Luttenberger said.
The Italian Air Force - which is currently acquiring new and upgraded MB-339CD trainers from Alenia Aermacchi as an interim measure until the M-346 is ready to enter service - views the Eurotraining initiative as its "number one priority", according to Colonel Luigi Del Bene from the service's plans and policy division.
"There won't be a state-of-the-art future training system without collaboration," Col Del Bene said.
Other interim solutions on offer to plug the potentially decade-long gap until the operational availability of the multinational Eurotraining system include taking slots at a joint French/Belgian school, which commenced operations with the Dassault-Breguet AlphaJet in January 2006 and is expected to continue operations until at least 2018.
Multiple choice
Meanwhile, the Spanish Air Force and industry partner EADS are offering access to upgraded Northrop F-5Ms at Talavera airbase, Finland has set up its Nordic Pilot Training Centre at Kauhava Airbase and Sweden has begun to extend the service life of its Saab 105 (Sk60) trainers until 2017. Greece has already signalled its impatience with the Eurotraining project by launching its own national competition to replace its ageing North American T-2 Buckeyes with Korean Aerospace T-50s or M-346s.
A potential rival to Eurotraining could come in the form of the UK Military Flying Training System (MFTS), which was initiated last year. It is to offer third-party use on a range of fixed-wing platforms including 28 new Hawk Mk 128s once the multi-tiered system has achieved full operational capability around 2012. The UK now provides Hawk T1/1A training to the Indian Air Force and is in the process of helping the Royal Saudi Air Force prepare for operations with the Eurofighter Typhoon.
MFTS, being run by the Lockheed Martin UK-led Ascent team, will no longer be a 'big bang' programme and parts of the UK flying training procurement process will be outside the consortium's control.
Ascent is termed the 'UK MFTS Training System Provider' (TSP) and will be responsible for training delivery on 20 flying disciplines for the UK armed forces over a 25-year period, covering all aspects of aircrew training from post aircrew selection up to operational conversion training.
This will involve running the 72 flying training contracts currently administered by Royal Air Force (RAF) Air Command's 22 (Flying Training) Group. Originally it had been expected that the contract would be worth around GBP6 billion (USD8.4 billion) over its life but it is now thought to be less than this. The consortium will also run a training information system on students, as well as being responsible for training design and delivery.
Elementary training
However, the consortium will not have a free hand to select so-called 'Tier 2' suppliers and is excluded from a competition to select the UK's elementary flying training service provider at RAF Cranwell. This will be competed in the conventional way by the UK's Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S) organisation. Ascent will now 'lead' MFTS procurement but with 'monitoring' by DE&S and Ascent consortium members will be prohibited from competing for Tier 2 contracts unless they can convince the DE&S there are "overriding value for money" reasons.
The MoD expects competition at the Tier 2 level to be the primary way Ascent delivers its expected 10 per cent cost savings in the annual flying training budget, which runs to some GBP205 million in the RAF alone.
The initial contract award to Ascent will only be as TSP and then there will be a rolling series of specific package awards or announcements as Ascent and DE&S launch a mix of conventional and private finance initiative (PFI) procurement projects to replace the existing flying training activities with new services or contracts.
The first deliverable under the programme is intended to be a main gate announcement on the replacement for the Royal Navy's rear-crew training, which is currently conducted on ageing British Aerospace Jetstream aircraft. This will be followed in the first quarter of 2009 by the introduction of the Hawk Mk 128 at RAF Valley in Wales. Over the next year initial gate decisions will be made to launch the development of procurement projects to replace the current rotary-wing, basic training and fixed-wing multi-engine training. These are currently provided by a mix of military-run and private-contractor-run multi-activity contracts.
By early 2009 six Hawk Mk 128s had been delivered to BAE Systems' Warton site from the company's Brough facility for flight tests and painting. Technicians from BAE Systems' main subcontractor at RAF Valley, Babcock Defence Services, have started their training and RAF pilots will start their Mk 128 conversion training in mid-2009.
The United Arab Emirates Air Force & Air Defence (UAE AF&AD) has ambitions to set up an end-to-end training pipeline for its air force and is looking for a private sector company, possibly not even an aircraft supplier, to manage this process in a coherent manner in the same way as the MFTS TSP. This company is likely to have a bigger focus on training design and management rather than equipment procurement, which is still being conducted separately.
Meanwhile, traditional procurement routes are still being followed by several air forces that have the resources to buy their own aircraft.
The biggest programme for new aircraft is currently underway in the UAE. On the heels of major investments in new Dassault Mirage 2000 and Lockheed Martin F-16 combat aircraft, the UAE AF&AD announced in February that it was to acquire 48 lead-in fighter trainer (LIFT) aircraft to replace its current British Aerospace Hawk Mk 102s. The UAE was a partner with EADS on the ill-fated German Mako project, but this has failed to proceed and the Hawk Mk 128, M-346 and Lockheed Martin/Korean Aerospace T-50 went head to head. The Hawk was dropped from the LIFT contest in November 2007 before the Italian jet was selected.
Contract negotiations are now on going for the deal, which could be worth more than USD1 billion. A new fleet of turboprop-powered trainers is also to be acquired, with the Hawker Beechcraft T-6 Texan II, Embraer Super Tucano and Pilatus PC-21 competing.
Further efforts were launched to generate even more aircrew for the UAE's F-16 force. Lockheed Martin started negotiating in 2007 to provide a lead-in fighter training programme to the UAE AF&AD at the Alliance International Airport at Fort Worth, Texas, in a deal that would have been worth USD201 million to the US defence giant and its partner, the Alliance Aviation Center of Excellence. After completing the introduction to 'fighter fundamentals' on leased ex-Norwegian Northrop F-5B aircraft, the UAE pilots were then to transition to F-16 Block 60-type conversion training at Tucson.
However, in late 2008 it emerged that the deal was not to proceed, apparently because the UAE AF&AD was moving to accelerating its LIFT contract award process.
Saudi Arabia is keeping its cards close to its chest about its plans to replace its fleet of 1980s-vintage Hawks. It has been in discussions with BAE Systems about a purchase of advanced variants of the Hawk, but an evolutionary upgrade programme now seems more likely, according to industry sources. Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman could also follow this route.
Israel is in the process of recapitalising its training fleet with the purchase of 25 T-6A Texans under a USD190 million deal signed in June last year. The first aircraft arrived in February and when the last aircraft arrive next year the Israel Air Force will be able to retire its last veteran Fouga CM-170.
The decision to buy the turbo prop Texan scuppered a bid by Israel Aerospace Industries to sell the country's air force the Advanced Technology Groups Javelin jet trainer - denying the product a crucial launch customer.
Iraq's newly reborn air force is investing heavily in training aircraft and has already established a flight school at Kirkuk with the help of the USAF. It is now looking to buy 20 T-6As to begin advanced flying training and this is seen as a key bridge before Iraq can buy its first fast jets since the demise of the old regime in 2003.
Hawks in India
The Indian Air Force (IAF) is the latest operator of the AJT version of the Hawk and is in the process of taking delivery of some 66 aircraft from production lines in the UK and India.
The IAF has announced extra orders for the Hawk and the Bangalore production facility of Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) looks like becoming the long-term home of Hawk production. BAE Systems is already starting to wind down its UK-centred production efforts at its Brough site so the India link is central to the future of the Hawk.
The IAF's transformation plans involve continued investment in new training aircraft and systems. The service is still committed to buying the HAL-32 Intermediate Jet Trainer but technical and funding delays mean it is not likely to replace the veteran HJT-16 until at least 2011.
In February 2008 Indian defence ministers and military chiefs announced that a further batch of 57 Hawks would be purchased, including 17 to allow the Indian Navy to train fighter pilot for its new carrier-embarked MiG-29s.
Meanwhile, Singapore's advanced jet trainer contest is expected to be decided by mid-2009 with the T-50 and M-346 going head to head.
The USAF has been considering for several years what to do about replacing its ageing fleet of some 500 T-38 Talon aircraft - potentially the biggest training aircraft procurement project of the next decade if funding can be found in the tight Pentagon budget.
An avionics upgrade of the T-38 has extended the life of the 1970s-vintage aircraft but the introduction of the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) from 2012 onwards is increasing pressure for the USAF to make a significant re-investment in its training aircraft fleet.
The US Navy is also likely to participate in this project as a means to replace some of its early model T-45s, which lacked embedded training features.
Aermacchi is keen to push the M-346 as a solution to the US and is looking for a US partner in the programme. Lockheed and KAI are expected to partner to offer the T-50.
It remains somewhat unclear what direction BAE Systems and Boeing will take. The two companies could continue their partnership on the T-45 or offer products independently. Boeing has been mooted as a partner for Aermacchi after it signed an agreement in 2008 to help the Italian manufacturer market the M-346 and M-311 basic trainer outside the US.
To summarise, over the next decade widespread investment is to be made in new training aircraft around the world. These will feature new computer-based training systems that will require constant upgrading and refreshing to ensure they remain compatible with frontline operation aircraft.
However, once air forces have made the leap to new digital era training aircraft, it will mean that they should not have to replace these airframes for two or maybe three more decades. The era of the long-life trainer is upon us.
Tim Ripley is a JDW Correspondent, based in London
Technological developments and customer requirements are transforming the fixed-wing training aircraft sector. Tim Ripley reports
Air forces around the world are all struggling to reconcile declining procurement, personnel and flight operations budgets, rapid changes in tactical requirements and nearly uncontrollable technological advances.
Nowhere are these issues more acute than in the development and procurement of new-generation fixed-wing training aircraft and services.
The introduction into frontline service of advanced fourth-generation fighter aircraft - the Eurofighter Typhoon, Saab Gripen and Dassault Rafale classes - means that continuing to use analogue-era training aircraft in a digital century is proving to be a false economy.
Over the next decade most advanced air forces hope to see programmes to recapitalise their fixed-wing training aircraft fleets and infrastructure come to fruition, making them fully compatible with current generations of combat aircraft.
Training aircraft are now almost always purchased to be part of an end-to-end training system, which means air forces rarely consider an aircraft purchase in isolation from the other elements of the system to ensure they are all compatible.
These end-to-end systems link together every phase of the training pipeline, from initial pilot selection, through basic flying training to conversion-to-type training. They comprise paperless courseware (which student pilots can work with on their own laptop computers and use to interact with computer-based-class rooms), part-task trainers and full-motion flight simulators. Overarching these training devices is computerised personnel management technology that allows a student's performance to be recorded and assessed throughout his or her flying career.
Training 21st-century aircrew to be combat ready is a complex and expensive business. It is no longer the case that modern air warriors just need to be taught how to fly their aircraft. The pilot of today has to be able to operate complex weapon systems that are increasingly seen as nodes in multinational digital communications networks.
Air forces around the world are looking to train their aircrew to absorb, analyse and react to huge quantities of data being delivered to their aircraft by a multitude of information pipes. One senior NATO officer involved in design aircrew training courses said alliance air forces were now viewing their aircrew as "information managers" rather than just pilots and weapon systems operations.
Many air forces are increasingly facing the problem that the capabilities of their frontline aircraft are now far in advance of those of their training aircraft.
This means that many of the skills essential to operate 21st-century aircraft are having to be taught in frontline units on expensive-to-fly operational aircraft rather than in an air force's training regime.
Not surprisingly, air forces are keen to reverse this trend. The buzzword for this phenomenon is 'downloading': the transfer of training back along the pipeline to less expensive phases of the student's course.
The most revolutionary advance in simulation technology in the past decade has been the development of so-called embedded simulation in trainer aircraft.
This allows the simulation of sensor inputs and weapon engagements during flight and potentially offers huge savings to air forces that no longer have to expend live ordnance or organise large-scale air training exercises. This technology is at the heart of many air forces' push to drive out cost from their training systems. The UK, for example, will use the embedded simulation technology on its soon-to-be-introduced BAE Systems Hawk Mk 128 advanced jet trainer (AJT) to eliminate the dropping of live ordnance from the advanced phase of its fast jet pilot training.
The evolution of beyond-visual-range (BVR) weapons and the sensors that support them means the experience of firing a live weapon no longer has the significance it had in the past. Aircrew operating these weapons and sensors conduct the whole engagement via computer-driven sensors that can now easily be replicated in simulation devices. The advent of software-driven synthetic radars and electro-optical sensors has helped this trend as they can be emulated, with mock engagements portrayed on sensor displays to the same level of fidelity and realism as the real thing.
Faking it
Synthetic radar, electro-optical sensors, software driven-electronic counter-measures and BVR missiles can all have simulated inputs inserted into training aircraft with relative ease. Boeing, BAE Systems, BVR, Lockheed Martin and Galileo Avionica are all active in this market to field these systems on the latest versions of the T-45, Hawk, T-50, M-311 and M-346 aircraft respectively.
Typical of these programmes is the US Navy's plan to purchase an embedded training system for its fleet of Boeing/BAE Systems T-45 Goshawk trainers. The T-45 Virtual Mission Training System being developed by Boeing will be used to train Undergraduate Military Flying Officers (UMFOs) or back-seat weapon-system operators in radar and weapon operation. The service is retiring its multicrew T-39 trainer aircraft and in the future UMFOs will do their radar training in a two-seat T-45 aircraft, with their instructors managing training activities from a ground station.
This rate of technological advance is expected to continue, possibly even at a faster pace. Embedded simulation devices will gain more widespread usage, allowing the linkage of the virtual and live worlds in an increasing number of training events. Training for aircrew will become a seamless continuum of virtual and live events.
Training military pilots is an expensive business. The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has quoted the cost of training a UK fast jet pilot up to entry into an operational conversion unit as being nearly USD3 million. Training a helicopter pilot costs the UK taxpayer nearly USD750,000 while training a multi-engine aircraft pilot is said to cost USD600,000.
These costs are not just measured in payment for aircraft fuel and the salaries of flying instructors but also the huge capital costs that are needed to buy modern aircraft, flight simulators, instructional facilities, accommodation and airfield infrastructure.
These capabilities are beyond the financial resources of many air arms. For that reason, many nations have looked to join forces to share the running and capital costs of setting up military flying training centres. This is creating a major dynamic in the flying training aircraft market, with aircraft increasingly not being purchased by individual air forces but by private companies with contracts to run such centres or partnerships of several air forces working together. As a result procurement can be more complex and take several years longer than would be the case with solely national procurements.
Further, not all nations have the financial ability to acquire and operate their own fleets of primary, basic, advanced and lead-in fighter trainers, plus training helicopters and multi-engined platforms. This reality has opened the door to innovative contracting arrangements with industry or participation in multinational training systems now available in abundance in the Western world.
The largest example of the latter arrangement now in existence is the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training (ENJJPT) scheme, which has been delivering services at Sheppard Air Force Base (AFB) in Texas since the signature of a memorandum of understanding in 1981. ENJJPT is currently contracted to operate until at least September 2016.
Backed by 13 signatory nations - not all of which currently send students to train on the system - ENJJPT is described as a multinational system with US participation, rather than a buy-in to US Air Force (USAF) training.
The school is currently undergoing a reorganisation, which will provide more contemporary instruction and a fairer cost structure for partner nations. Other enhancements being introduced include an avionics upgrade to the school's supersonic Northrop T-38 Talons - more than 124 of which were being brought up to the enhanced T-38C standard - and use of the Raytheon (now Beechcraft) T-6A Texan II, currently being introduced to replace the school's 1970s-era Cessna T-37 platforms by the end of 2009.
The US Navy, meanwhile, offers international partners use of its pilot training system, with students from nations including Brazil, France, India, Italy and Spain currently using its T-45A/C Goshawk carrier trainers.
Winging it
Set up by the Canadian Forces in partnership with prime contractor Bombardier, the NATO Flying Training in Canada (NFTC) scheme is now in its eighth year of operation. It has some 24 T-6A Harvard IIs and 18 BAE Systems Hawk 115s, which had amassed a combined 130,000 hours by late 2007.
The current development of the Canada Wings system, delivered by the Allied Wings consortium, will also offer access to other nations to perform training for crews of transport aircraft and helicopters. The industry-supported system will eventually comprise nine Grob G120A primary trainers, seven Bell 206 and nine Bell 412 helicopters, nine Raytheon King Air C90B multi-engine trainers and use of the Canadian Forces' Bombardier Dash 8 navigation trainers.
A European staff requirement for the Eurotraining - or Advanced European Jet Pilot Training (AEJPT) - programme was agreed in June 2007 but the current partner nations - Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Sweden - have to yet to finalise the deal, begin buying aircraft and establishing a main operating base. The aim is to begin training 10 pilots a year from 2015.
The programme - originally conceived with the support of 17 nations - lost the participation of Germany and Switzerland early on. Meanwhile EADS' Mako high-energy advanced trainer design was rejected as a candidate airframe and Switzerland placed a domestic order for six Pilatus PC-21s to bridge the gap to its F/A-18C/D fighters.
Alenia Aermacchi's M-346 is considered the lead candidate for the Eurotraining system, although a basic trainer could also be acquired during the programme's future development and production phase. The programme's senior steering committee member, Colonel Wolfgang Luttenberger of the Austrian Air Force, believes the system could be established using two or three sites around Europe, with eight bases still in contention. Portugal's Beja airbase has been assessed as the only facility capable of meeting all system requirements, Col Luttenberger said.
The Italian Air Force - which is currently acquiring new and upgraded MB-339CD trainers from Alenia Aermacchi as an interim measure until the M-346 is ready to enter service - views the Eurotraining initiative as its "number one priority", according to Colonel Luigi Del Bene from the service's plans and policy division.
"There won't be a state-of-the-art future training system without collaboration," Col Del Bene said.
Other interim solutions on offer to plug the potentially decade-long gap until the operational availability of the multinational Eurotraining system include taking slots at a joint French/Belgian school, which commenced operations with the Dassault-Breguet AlphaJet in January 2006 and is expected to continue operations until at least 2018.
Multiple choice
Meanwhile, the Spanish Air Force and industry partner EADS are offering access to upgraded Northrop F-5Ms at Talavera airbase, Finland has set up its Nordic Pilot Training Centre at Kauhava Airbase and Sweden has begun to extend the service life of its Saab 105 (Sk60) trainers until 2017. Greece has already signalled its impatience with the Eurotraining project by launching its own national competition to replace its ageing North American T-2 Buckeyes with Korean Aerospace T-50s or M-346s.
A potential rival to Eurotraining could come in the form of the UK Military Flying Training System (MFTS), which was initiated last year. It is to offer third-party use on a range of fixed-wing platforms including 28 new Hawk Mk 128s once the multi-tiered system has achieved full operational capability around 2012. The UK now provides Hawk T1/1A training to the Indian Air Force and is in the process of helping the Royal Saudi Air Force prepare for operations with the Eurofighter Typhoon.
MFTS, being run by the Lockheed Martin UK-led Ascent team, will no longer be a 'big bang' programme and parts of the UK flying training procurement process will be outside the consortium's control.
Ascent is termed the 'UK MFTS Training System Provider' (TSP) and will be responsible for training delivery on 20 flying disciplines for the UK armed forces over a 25-year period, covering all aspects of aircrew training from post aircrew selection up to operational conversion training.
This will involve running the 72 flying training contracts currently administered by Royal Air Force (RAF) Air Command's 22 (Flying Training) Group. Originally it had been expected that the contract would be worth around GBP6 billion (USD8.4 billion) over its life but it is now thought to be less than this. The consortium will also run a training information system on students, as well as being responsible for training design and delivery.
Elementary training
However, the consortium will not have a free hand to select so-called 'Tier 2' suppliers and is excluded from a competition to select the UK's elementary flying training service provider at RAF Cranwell. This will be competed in the conventional way by the UK's Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S) organisation. Ascent will now 'lead' MFTS procurement but with 'monitoring' by DE&S and Ascent consortium members will be prohibited from competing for Tier 2 contracts unless they can convince the DE&S there are "overriding value for money" reasons.
The MoD expects competition at the Tier 2 level to be the primary way Ascent delivers its expected 10 per cent cost savings in the annual flying training budget, which runs to some GBP205 million in the RAF alone.
The initial contract award to Ascent will only be as TSP and then there will be a rolling series of specific package awards or announcements as Ascent and DE&S launch a mix of conventional and private finance initiative (PFI) procurement projects to replace the existing flying training activities with new services or contracts.
The first deliverable under the programme is intended to be a main gate announcement on the replacement for the Royal Navy's rear-crew training, which is currently conducted on ageing British Aerospace Jetstream aircraft. This will be followed in the first quarter of 2009 by the introduction of the Hawk Mk 128 at RAF Valley in Wales. Over the next year initial gate decisions will be made to launch the development of procurement projects to replace the current rotary-wing, basic training and fixed-wing multi-engine training. These are currently provided by a mix of military-run and private-contractor-run multi-activity contracts.
By early 2009 six Hawk Mk 128s had been delivered to BAE Systems' Warton site from the company's Brough facility for flight tests and painting. Technicians from BAE Systems' main subcontractor at RAF Valley, Babcock Defence Services, have started their training and RAF pilots will start their Mk 128 conversion training in mid-2009.
The United Arab Emirates Air Force & Air Defence (UAE AF&AD) has ambitions to set up an end-to-end training pipeline for its air force and is looking for a private sector company, possibly not even an aircraft supplier, to manage this process in a coherent manner in the same way as the MFTS TSP. This company is likely to have a bigger focus on training design and management rather than equipment procurement, which is still being conducted separately.
Meanwhile, traditional procurement routes are still being followed by several air forces that have the resources to buy their own aircraft.
The biggest programme for new aircraft is currently underway in the UAE. On the heels of major investments in new Dassault Mirage 2000 and Lockheed Martin F-16 combat aircraft, the UAE AF&AD announced in February that it was to acquire 48 lead-in fighter trainer (LIFT) aircraft to replace its current British Aerospace Hawk Mk 102s. The UAE was a partner with EADS on the ill-fated German Mako project, but this has failed to proceed and the Hawk Mk 128, M-346 and Lockheed Martin/Korean Aerospace T-50 went head to head. The Hawk was dropped from the LIFT contest in November 2007 before the Italian jet was selected.
Contract negotiations are now on going for the deal, which could be worth more than USD1 billion. A new fleet of turboprop-powered trainers is also to be acquired, with the Hawker Beechcraft T-6 Texan II, Embraer Super Tucano and Pilatus PC-21 competing.
Further efforts were launched to generate even more aircrew for the UAE's F-16 force. Lockheed Martin started negotiating in 2007 to provide a lead-in fighter training programme to the UAE AF&AD at the Alliance International Airport at Fort Worth, Texas, in a deal that would have been worth USD201 million to the US defence giant and its partner, the Alliance Aviation Center of Excellence. After completing the introduction to 'fighter fundamentals' on leased ex-Norwegian Northrop F-5B aircraft, the UAE pilots were then to transition to F-16 Block 60-type conversion training at Tucson.
However, in late 2008 it emerged that the deal was not to proceed, apparently because the UAE AF&AD was moving to accelerating its LIFT contract award process.
Saudi Arabia is keeping its cards close to its chest about its plans to replace its fleet of 1980s-vintage Hawks. It has been in discussions with BAE Systems about a purchase of advanced variants of the Hawk, but an evolutionary upgrade programme now seems more likely, according to industry sources. Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman could also follow this route.
Israel is in the process of recapitalising its training fleet with the purchase of 25 T-6A Texans under a USD190 million deal signed in June last year. The first aircraft arrived in February and when the last aircraft arrive next year the Israel Air Force will be able to retire its last veteran Fouga CM-170.
The decision to buy the turbo prop Texan scuppered a bid by Israel Aerospace Industries to sell the country's air force the Advanced Technology Groups Javelin jet trainer - denying the product a crucial launch customer.
Iraq's newly reborn air force is investing heavily in training aircraft and has already established a flight school at Kirkuk with the help of the USAF. It is now looking to buy 20 T-6As to begin advanced flying training and this is seen as a key bridge before Iraq can buy its first fast jets since the demise of the old regime in 2003.
Hawks in India
The Indian Air Force (IAF) is the latest operator of the AJT version of the Hawk and is in the process of taking delivery of some 66 aircraft from production lines in the UK and India.
The IAF has announced extra orders for the Hawk and the Bangalore production facility of Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) looks like becoming the long-term home of Hawk production. BAE Systems is already starting to wind down its UK-centred production efforts at its Brough site so the India link is central to the future of the Hawk.
The IAF's transformation plans involve continued investment in new training aircraft and systems. The service is still committed to buying the HAL-32 Intermediate Jet Trainer but technical and funding delays mean it is not likely to replace the veteran HJT-16 until at least 2011.
In February 2008 Indian defence ministers and military chiefs announced that a further batch of 57 Hawks would be purchased, including 17 to allow the Indian Navy to train fighter pilot for its new carrier-embarked MiG-29s.
Meanwhile, Singapore's advanced jet trainer contest is expected to be decided by mid-2009 with the T-50 and M-346 going head to head.
The USAF has been considering for several years what to do about replacing its ageing fleet of some 500 T-38 Talon aircraft - potentially the biggest training aircraft procurement project of the next decade if funding can be found in the tight Pentagon budget.
An avionics upgrade of the T-38 has extended the life of the 1970s-vintage aircraft but the introduction of the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) from 2012 onwards is increasing pressure for the USAF to make a significant re-investment in its training aircraft fleet.
The US Navy is also likely to participate in this project as a means to replace some of its early model T-45s, which lacked embedded training features.
Aermacchi is keen to push the M-346 as a solution to the US and is looking for a US partner in the programme. Lockheed and KAI are expected to partner to offer the T-50.
It remains somewhat unclear what direction BAE Systems and Boeing will take. The two companies could continue their partnership on the T-45 or offer products independently. Boeing has been mooted as a partner for Aermacchi after it signed an agreement in 2008 to help the Italian manufacturer market the M-346 and M-311 basic trainer outside the US.
To summarise, over the next decade widespread investment is to be made in new training aircraft around the world. These will feature new computer-based training systems that will require constant upgrading and refreshing to ensure they remain compatible with frontline operation aircraft.
However, once air forces have made the leap to new digital era training aircraft, it will mean that they should not have to replace these airframes for two or maybe three more decades. The era of the long-life trainer is upon us.
Tim Ripley is a JDW Correspondent, based in London
