welcome my name is hazard i'm a fighter
pilot for the air force i spent the
first half of my career flying the f-16
now i fly the f-35 so technology has
progressed
quite a bit from the days when we flew
these aircraft however pilot training
hasn't
until now so thanks to major general
pulse wills
and his staff pilot training is
undergoing a transformation
so we have upt next that's the
innovation engine that is developing
new and advanced techniques using
virtual reality
and we are scaling that with upt 2.5
and spreading that out to the rest of
the pilot training bases
[Music]
welcome today i'm at randolph air force
base in san antonio
i'm standing next to major general pulse
wills who when i was active duty was my
boss's boss's boss's boss so hopefully
this goes well but
major general wills is in charge of over
32 000 people
1600 aircraft spread across 22 locations
and today he's going to tell us how
we've reimagined pilot training
thanks hazard it's great to see you it's
it's great that you were able to come
out here and spend the time with us and
we really appreciate it
you know we had this great idea about
three years ago and the idea was really
simple
is the way we've always done it gonna be
good enough in the 21st century and
you're a fifth gen pilot
and you know that the threats that are
out there are different and the simple
fact of the matter is that our pilot
training system hasn't changed in about
six decades when you really get back
down to it so we started uh general
steve cost was the commander of atc
he had a really simple charter to the
team he said grab some great young
officers and airmen let's uh give them
some authority some empowerment and
let's go see if they can find a way to
train pilots in half the time
and make the same quality or a better
pilot using advanced technology
and so pilot training next was born
we've run three
uh classes through the pilot training
next program it's run by our own
detachment 24 right here at randolph
and we use the t6 aircraft as a trainer
now a lot of people think that the t6 is
just a you know a turbo prop there's not
much to think about but as you found out
it's a pretty great little airplane and
particularly we used an advanced version
of the t6 with better avionics
and better tools and so we started
something about a year ago called upt
2.5 the 2.5 is really simple if you flew
t37s and t38s that was 1.0
our current system is 2.0 and so this is
2.5 because we know it's the first step
towards a really reimagined pilot
training system
and 2.5 is really just trying to apply
the key lessons from pilot training next
the first one is the the idea that
instructor pilots are the core of our
training system you know this as an ip
the simple fact is that this command in
particular rides on the backs of our
instructors
we're making a difference every day the
next is this idea that our technology
might just might in the world's greatest
and most technologically advanced
country we just might be able to do
better than issuing you a poster
and a checklist and telling you to
pretend you're flying all around the
world right now
tens of thousands of people are teaching
themselves to fly using simulators and
technology that they've acquired off the
shelf
and built at home so the question is
could we use immersive technology like
virtual reality
like advanced simulation systems could
we turn those into military
training devices and the answer is yeah
you bet we can and we've been able to
build these low-cost simulators
for a fraction of the cost the third
idea
was the fact that all of us learn a
little bit differently
student-centric learning we call it but
you would know that as really just being
a good instructor
and tailoring your instructional methods
to the student that you have not the
student that you want
the next idea was the idea that seamless
access to content
you live in a wired a wireless world but
you have very much
a wired air force and so almost
everybody
has a smartphone they have bluetooth
everything in their home connects
but today in our training systems
virtually nothing connects and so we
think that there's a better way
and one of the ways we want to get after
that is with cloud-based learning
systems
we want to have on-demand on-command
content that reflects
the way that people really learn and
live and then the final idea we're
trying to implement
is the idea of human performance we know
that our technological edge is shrinking
we know that our adversaries are
acquiring better and better stuff
and we know that the future fight is
going to be won like it always is by our
warriors
and what happens between their ears the
way that they think the way that they
plan
the way that they can react and drive
the fight is going to be fundamental
and so as we roll all of this into our
new syllabus our new training system
that's what upt 2.5 is all about
do you want to make the most out of
every flight hour you have or not
do you want to step to the flight line
on day one prepared to fly the airplane
or do you want to spend a whole bunch of
sorties watching somebody else show you
so you can do and since we've adopted vr
in these programs the students go out
there and on day one they're flying the
airplane
and they're doing not watching to me the
vr is just an advancement
of chair flying and how do you get after
that and the way that we see the results
by the way
is that in pilot training next we had
students that soloed on their fourth
sortie in the t6
it's not because the vr puts magic in
your head it's because they had put
hours and hours and hours
practicing in a very realistic uh
situation and so when you talk about
what difference does it make it's not
that we want to cut those hours
it's that if i can have you solo on ride
four imagine what i can do with you
between ride four and ride 44.
[Music]
we're going to show you a little bit
about what the ecosystem is here when we
talk about innovation in uh aetc
it's the same software p3e running here
and you can load it up so right now you
know your
your viewers on youtube can load up the
same exact things that we're fine they
can fly to e6
or they can load up to a t1 to a c17 to
a 737
right it's already built into the
ecosystem it's for play right and so
it can be used for fun for training
so if you look at this itd this is the
screen that the instructor looks at when
we're flying
that functionality is obs and what we're
recording is we're recording our instant
parameters
we're going to be recording uh aspect
angle from a god's eye 3d view above
from the right screen that's going to be
what you're looking at actually in the
vr and we're
taking our videos to instruct and
debrief and we're saving those and
that's what we're watching here so this
is the 1.5 hacks
on the left you're going to have game
plan and dlos you're going to have our
3d view of aspect
this is the parameters we'd be showing
the student and this is what physically
uh the student or the instructor is
looking at when they're looking at the
height
so one time through this starts off
[Music]
four aspect to 1800 speed is here he's
at 220 knots if you look here yeah
fights on he drives at the turn circle
this is what he's physically looking at
if you look here
that is what he's looking at outside if
you watch this airspeed the 200 knots
pick up
fox 2 at this point he's transitioning
after the hags to an energy
fight at 230 knots he's rating he has
him just above the canopy bow
his range is collapsing if you look at
his going from 1300 to 1200 feet
at this point he's entered the control
zone now he's transitioning to a nose
fight
and he's going for a gun attempt inside
500 feet and that's what it looks like
for food
[Music]
our craft our comprehensive readiness
for aircrew flying training
from the very beginning let's assess
your your performance as a human
let's give you the tools to get stronger
physically let's give you the tools to
get stronger mentally let's use a coach
athlete relationship
we're sending you out to an environment
where you're going to pull 9gs you're
going to go twice the speed of sound
why don't we treat you like a
professional athlete and let's provide a
coach
and remember coaches have standards and
coaches you know people get cut from
athletic teams all the time so there are
some people that worry we're lowering
the standards
not the case let's make our humans
better from day one
yeah we just got a chance to go there
and throw tennis balls with the blinking
lights
have you had a chance to do that turns
out i'm not as good at
the blinking lights in the tennis balls
as i'd like to be i'll attribute that to
my age but uh
it's a it's a great way of pointing out
that the reality is the human mind can
be trained
[Applause]
this is one of the tools that they use
here to help me explain what's going on
i have liz
take it away yeah so i'm one of the
cognitive performance specialists here
at randolph
we train not just the physical side but
also the mental side
so this is some of the technology we use
here we have ipads
and what this is doing is measuring
hazards
heart rate and also his heart rate
variability that gives us a nice picture
into the actual physiological reactions
that he has
not just in the gym but in any stressful
situation
so the dot right here shows us
essentially his coherence level
what coherence means is that's a balance
between again that sympathetic and
parasympathetic nervous system
so you can see right now he's doing a
pretty good job of keeping his
physiology under control
now you see just dropped into the blue
zone that means we're going a little bit
further
out of coherence and if we get into the
red zone
that means that typically folks are
pretty discombobulated
and we see a pretty steep decline in
their mental
performance so that's one of the skills
we teach right away
to make sure that pilots are using these
skills not just in the gym
but in the cockpit as well thanks liz
absolutely thanks so much
well sir thanks for having us out here
this has been a fantastic experience the
t6b
is revolutionary i i went into this
thinking it was just going to be a t6
with a hud
and it's completely different because as
we were talking about before
when i graduated t-38 so i was pretty
far down the pipeline
i still didn't know what made a good
fighter i thought it was all just stick
and rudder how smoothly you landed
and you know that's what really
surprised me when i got to the caf
is that you have to be pretty good with
your hands but then you have to be able
to work the radar you have to be able to
do a sar map if you're
you know an f-35 you have to do all
these other things communicate to your
team
and make it happen so i think what you
guys are doing here is laying
the groundwork for that i appreciate it
and you're right on there's no intent to
make pilot training easier
the intent is to make a better pilot to
fight and win the nation's wars
well sir thanks for having us out here
and i look forward to being back awesome
[Music]
thanks
[Music]
you