Operational training and employment
As we develop new capabilities, we must be prepared to field them as soon as they are safe and effective. Including
modularity in our development will enable us to more easily integrate early operational discoveries and shrink the
time horizon between system inception and system maturity. An effective weapon system in the hands of innovative
Airmen is incredibly powerful. Those who operate the systems in the field continue to discover uses that designers
never imagined. We must strengthen this feedback loop, and rapidly validate operating concepts developed in the field
and disseminate them force-wide. We will create the operations and training environment that preserves the standards
and discipline that have made us the best-trained force in history, but also provide the climate for innovation to thrive
and push the very best tactics, techniques, and procedures into execution more rapidly.
We must also pursue ways to streamline the transition to mission readiness along the spectrum of conflict. We have
suffered the effects of necessarily focusing on one mission set for a sustained period of time, and the resulting difficulty
of returning to “full-spectrum” readiness. As we design systems and concepts in the future, we must do so with an eye
toward the challenge of gaining and maintaining sufficient readiness across all of our mission sets in minimum time.
Equally important, we must seek to drive down costs. Looking for commonality in training elements will enhance
this effort. One of the more promising paths to agility in
operational training and readiness is in the area of Live—
Virtual—Constructive training. Technological advances
have moved simulation well-beyond the rudimentary motion
and visual displays designed to augment procedural and
navigation training, and now enable integrated and linked
training between geographically separated simulators. Free
from the constraints of the physical realm, we can develop
virtual environments – airspace, ranges, etc. – that deliver
robust, realistic training against existing threats as well as
those we anticipate in the future. These environments can
serve as the proving ground for multi-domain operations
and a laboratory for assessing emerging capabilities. The
integration of this virtual environment with physical systems will expand opportunities to include complex mission
employment scenarios – currently reserved for episodic and costly exercises. Virtual systems also carry with them a
different operations and sustainment paradigm. Much of the cost associated with these systems is in the supporting
infrastructure. Consequently, by applying modularity to our concept for virtual training systems, we can develop
simulation platforms that can be “removed and replaced” into a common architecture. Such a construct will provide
training flexibility and offer the opportunity for regional simulation centers, mitigating the cost of building multiple,
duplicative structures at every installation.