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KC-10
Air-Refueling Tanker
Project
Title: KC-10 Air-Refueling Trainer
Project Customer: United
States Air Force
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US Air Force KC-10 Air Refueling Operation of F-15 Squadron |
KC-10 Instructor Operating
Station Interface |
Project Overview: The
United States Air Force has long used aerial-refueling simulators
to train and certify KC-10 Extender refueling boom operators. The
simulators, known as the Boom Operator Trainers or BOT, have
received a wide range of independent upgrades and modifications
to keep the trainer operational and effective. Although
the trainer remained functional with the upgrades, the basic
obsolescence of the trainer’s technology was not addressed
and over time, the simulator suffered from supportability issues. In
addition, a large recent effort to update the system with high
fidelity models of selected receiver aircraft to regain certifiable
performance did not achieve the intended utility for actual training
use. The compounded problems of supportability and sub-par
fidelity decreased the inherent value of the simulator and a
change was crucial.
The Air Force selected the expertise
at ACME Worldwide Enterprises, Inc. to design and perform the
modifications to rejuvenate the BOT trainer. The
Air Force asked ACME to replace the obsolete technology and to
enhance the BOT’s training effectiveness with an improved
Image Generator (IG) database. In addition, the government
asked to correct the Test Discrepancies (TD’s) for the
receiver models. Trainer revitalization followed
the USAF goal to optimize training efforts that produce highly
skilled operators, a priceless force multiplier in this era of
limited resources and extensive weapon system life extensions.
The
KC-10 BOT modification contract completely transformed the
BOT supportability. Aging hard copies of maintenance
manuals with data that does not represent the past modification
efforts was transformed into a precise, digital, technical
documentation package. The contract also delivered a complete
spares package for the updated systems and the crucial support
training to quickly and effectively utilize the myriad of new
features. With this contract, BOT supportability received
a much-needed anti-aging boost that will take its training effectiveness
far into the future.
The Air Force selected ACME for this
project based on the company’s
cost effective pricing, superior technical proposal, and outstanding
performance on similar modifications for the KC-135 air refueling
trainers known as the Boom Operator Partial Task Trainers (BOPTT).
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