Page 46 - Australian Defence Magazine July-August 2021

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JULY-AUGUST 2021 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
“There’s a lot of great simulators coming out now,” Mann said. “The RPAS that’s been proposed for Sea 129 Phase 5 has got a very solid simulator that’s been built around the naval environment. So we’re hoping to utilise that exten- sively in the initial and ongoing training program.
“The role of simulators is only growing in the RPAS en- vironment because, unlike crewed aircraft, you can never get the field or the environmental cues when you’re flying a drone anyway,” Mann added. “You’re just controlling an in- put. In other words, whether you’ve been doing it via simu- lation or an actual drone, there’s no physical link between you and the aircraft. You don’t get any feedback.”
Currently the uptake of simulators as drone training aids remains limited due to regulations governing how many hours trainees have to spend flying a real drone, but Mann told ADM that industry feedback to the Civil Aviation Safe- ty Authority (CASA) could eventually result in a change.
“Simulators have really got a long way to go inside drones and I think there’ll be a greater level of acceptance of the fi- delity of simulators,” he said. “There are some differences but I think you’ll end up like the airlines did where a lot of second officers are on the aircraft for the first time on a real job.
“We’ll definitely get close to that because there is little difference between actual flying and simulated flying, par- ticularly if the controller and the screen representation is exactly the same - and that’s the key.”
Another key argument for the expanded use of simulators in drone training is the ADF’s operational need to move beyond visual line of sight and conduct emergency training.
“As we move into beyond visual line of sight, trainees can’t see the drone anyway; they’re putting inputs in, put- ting waypoints in, monitoring the screen - how is that dif- ferent from a simulator versus the actual mission?” Mann said. “In addition, the pilot can become better skilled at managing emergencies because we can simulate situations we could never do in actual flight. Loss of links, loss of con- trol, loss of degradation of an engine, those sort of things.”
And how has UAVAIR seen drone literacy change across the Army over the past two years?
“There’s been exponential growth in the use of drones and a better understanding of drone literacy,” Mann said. “I think everyone is now seeing the benefits of the drones and it will inform decision-making into the future.
“Equally they understand that commercial off-the-shelf drones have a place in Army, whether that’s basic filming and photography or even debriefing. In fact drones are a great debrief tool for section attacks or inspecting radio an- tennas or other frontline tasks, or for inspecting aircraft in RAAF and more.”
Mann believes the next step for the ADF is improving literacy beyond visual line of sight: “We’ve talked about specialised training and specialised use of mapping and
UAVAIR