Training system on the move

Luke Air Force Base, Ariz., recently became the 10th Air Force and Air National Guard base approved to receive a new, mobile training system from Cubic Corp.

The "rangeless" training system allows for the rapid deployment of air combat training missions in any available airspace without reliance on fixed ground infrastructure, according to Cubic.

Under the contract, the Air Force will receive:

* Deployable ground facilities for PC-based debriefing stations. The stations will include Cubic's Individual Combat Aircrew Display System (ICADS), which lets pilots review training missions on commercially available PCs or laptop computers in a Microsoft Corp. Windows environment.

* Refurbished airborne instrumentation pods, which are mobile monitoring devices mounted on aircraft that collect in-flight data and transmit information for real-time monitoring and post-mission debriefings. The new pods will incorporate Global Positioning System technology for precise tracking of aircraft and weapons simulations during training.

With the recent $3.9 million order, Luke Air Force Base will be the 10th military base to receive the Cubic solution under an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract awarded in October 2001. The contract initially called for refurbishments at nine military bases. The latest order raises the total value of the contract to $42.6 million, said Gerald Dinkel, president and chief executive officer of Cubic Defense Applications.

Cubic met its first program milestone in December 2002 at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., after delivering the first batch of equipment there. Langley, Va., will be the next base to receive the equipment, and "within a 12-month period, the equipment should be delivered, accepted and operational at all 10 bases," said Phil Fisch, Cubic Defense Applications' director of training systems.

Cubic Defense Applications, a subsidiary of San Diego-based Cubic, is the prime contractor and systems integrator on the Air Force project and is teamed with Metric Systems Corp., a subsidiary of Integrated Defense Technologies.