Flight simulator firm Dogfight Boss, and Varjo, the high-end XR headset creator, introduced they’ve shipped their first blended actuality F-16 simulator to the Ukrainian Air Pressure to assist speed up pilot coaching. And there’s doubtless extra to return, because the nation inevitably seems to scale coaching to maintain tempo with the inflow of the American-built fighter jets.
Final month Ukraine started receiving its first F-16s from NATO members Denmark and the Netherlands, which are supposed to substitute its getting old Soviet-era MiG and Sukhoi jets. Belgium and Norway have additionally signed on to offer Ukraine with over 60 of the fighter jets.
A handful of Ukrainian pilots started coaching to fly F-16s in Arizona late final 12 months, nevertheless Ukrainian officers have expressed frustration they merely can’t prepare sufficient, as F-16 coaching packages within the US and throughout Europe have restricted seats.
Now Dogfight Boss and Varjo have partnered to ship a MR headset-equipped F-16 C Viper simulator to an unspecified Ukrainian Fighter Pilot Base in Kyiv, which is able to permit pilots to fly digital missions whereas seeing a passthrough of their instrument cluster, permitting for a extra real looking coaching expertise.
Though such a platform doesn’t tackle the coaching crunch at hand, it can permit pilots to coach and keep expertise in-country, which has been an energetic warfare zone because the Russian invasion started in February 2022.
Dogfight Boss maintains in a LinkedIn publish that the reception to the MR simulator has been promising up to now, noting there may be an “pressing want for extra models to assist cooperative coaching eventualities.” This might see not less than eight extra simulators shipped to the Ukrainian navy, the corporate says.
“After almost a 12 months of detailed fine-tuning and in depth testing with the assistance of EU F-16 pilot instructors, we’re honored to ship Ukraine’s first absolutely useful F-16 simulator,” Dogfight Boss CEO and founder Lukas Homola says. “This simulator is a testomony to our dedication to precision and excellence, which is being developed and produced in-house. From development to electronics, each part, together with the entire instrument panels, throttle quadrant, pedals, and force-sensing stick base, has been crafted to satisfy the best requirements.”
Each the Finland-based Varjo and Czechia-based Dogfight Boss have labored extensively with protection prospects over time, with Varjo’s XR headset at the moment utilized by 60 such entities, together with the U.S. Military Reconfigurable Digital Collective Coach (RVCT) program which makes use of Varjo for transportable coaching for the Apache, Chinook, and Blackhawk helicopters.
