Today's fast-paced, dynamic war environment is driving a requirement for a better training capability targeted at senior Air Force leaders in critical command & control (C2) positions, specifically the Joint Forces Air Component Commander (JFACC) and senior leaders within the Joint Air and Space Operations Center (JAOC). The Air Force needs, as a key component of a new instructional strategy, a realistic, interactive training simulation environment that can mimic the operational level of war while creating decision-making opportunities for these senior C2 leaders to gain experience prior to, and in conjunction with, on-the-job training. To solve this problem, MaK Technologies will work with the Air Force and our supporting subcontractors, Zel Technologies LLC and Klein Associates, to design (Phase I) and develop (Phase II) a prototype training system that will provide easy access to lessons learned via a knowledge management system combined with an effective, realistic, PC-based training simulation environment to support improved senior leader operational C2 training. MÄKs approach has a number of benefits. MÄK has proven experience in building effective, focused, PC-based, military training simulations. We will leverage experience and products from our current USAF TST Trainer development effort. We will also leverage experience and expertise from our efforts over the last 5 years developing and delivering training simulations for the Army, Marine Corps, and National Guard. Our success with the USAF, Army, National Guard, and the Marine Corps reflects our knowledge and skill in developing focused simulations to support specific training objectives for a defined training audience. The proposed approach will provide interoperability with Joint and other USAF systems. Since our proposed C2 simulation environment will be HLA compliant, it will be able to interoperate with other DoD training simulation systems such as DMO or DARWARS. In addition, our proposed C2 simulation environment will be interoperable with MÄKs other SIMinterNET-based training systems, allowing for joint, multi-level echelon staff training over the Internet. We will provide fast, quality results by leveraging COTS products. MÄK is able to leverage its existing COTS products to develop a cost-effective C2 simulation. In addition, the resulting C2 simulation environment system will be integrated into MÄKs SIMinterNET product line ensuring commercialization. Since the all of the SIMinterNET-based trainers share the same simulation engine, any work performed under this effort will also benefit existing and future military trainers developed by MÄK. MÄKs team has a high degree of Military Expertise. MÄK employs several retired senior military officers who understand military decision-making, C2 processes, and training these skills using simulations. The Primary Investigator is a retired Army officer with extensive field experience. Our proposed subcontractor, ZelTech, employs subject matter experts recognized for their USAF C2 expertise, and has relationships with key senior leader mentors including LGen Short. Our team has the background and knowledge to quickly conduct the research, identify the requirements, and develop a practical design that will accomplish the mission.
Keywords: Aerospace operations, command and control training, distributed mission operation, readiness evaluation, team effectiveness, knowledge warehousing, contextualized training, senior leader training
