Combined Actuality Flight Sims Are Accelerating F-16 Pilot Coaching in Ukraine

Flight simulator firm Dogfight Boss, and Varjo, the high-end XR headset creator, introduced they’ve shipped their first combined actuality F-16 simulator to the Ukrainian Air Drive to assist speed up pilot coaching. And there’s probably extra to come back, because the nation inevitably seems to be to scale coaching to maintain tempo with the inflow of the American-built fighter jets.

Final month Ukraine started receiving its first F-16s from NATO members Denmark and the Netherlands, which are supposed to exchange its getting old Soviet-era MiG and Sukhoi jets. Belgium and Norway have additionally signed on to supply Ukraine with over 60 of the fighter jets.

A handful of Ukrainian pilots started training to fly F-16s in Arizona late final 12 months, nonetheless Ukrainian officers have expressed frustration they simply can’t train enough, as F-16 coaching packages within the US and throughout Europe have restricted seats.

Now Dogfight Boss and Varjo have partnered to ship a MR headset-equipped F-16 C Viper simulator to an unspecified Ukrainian Fighter Pilot Base in Kyiv, which can enable pilots to fly digital missions whereas seeing a passthrough of their instrument cluster, permitting for a extra life like coaching expertise.

Though such a platform doesn’t handle the coaching crunch at hand, it is going to enable pilots to coach and keep abilities in-country, which has been an lively battle zone for the reason that Russian invasion started in February 2022.

Dogfight Boss maintains in a LinkedIn post that the reception to the MR simulator has been promising to date, noting there may be an “pressing want for added models to assist cooperative coaching situations.” This might see not less than eight extra simulators shipped to the Ukrainian army, the corporate says.

“After almost a 12 months of detailed fine-tuning and intensive testing with the assistance of EU F-16 pilot instructors, we’re honored to ship Ukraine’s first absolutely practical F-16 simulator,” Dogfight Boss CEO and founder Lukas Homola says. “This simulator is a testomony to our dedication to precision and excellence, which is being developed and produced in-house. From building to electronics, each part, together with the whole instrument panels, throttle quadrant, pedals, and force-sensing stick base, has been crafted to fulfill the very best requirements.”

Each the Finland-based Varjo and Czechia-based Dogfight Boss have labored extensively with protection clients through the years, with Varjo’s XR headset presently utilized by 60 such entities, together with the U.S. Military Reconfigurable Digital Collective Coach (RVCT) program which makes use of Varjo for moveable coaching for the Apache, Chinook, and Blackhawk helicopters.