Navy’s new ‘Project Avenger’ flight training
program aims to produce stronger aviators
8 hours ago
Marine 1st Lts. John Kenyon, top, and Matthew Lorber, student naval aviators assigned to the "Boomers" of Training Squadron 27, conduct a formation flight in T-6B Texan II aircraft above the Corpus Christi area of Texas Oct. 23. (Lt. Michelle Tucker/Navy)
The goal is to
produce more capable young aviators and get them to the fleet faster and more
efficiently.
To do that, the sea service is totally revamping how it
trains student pilots by capitalizing on modern technology,
providing more one-on-one instruction and mentoring, and moving beyond the
linear progression of the traditional learning environment to a student-focused
model in which learning and skill development is tailored to the individual.
Naval Aviation
Training Next–Project Avenger, the new prototype training program, aims to
reduce the length of time it takes to train students by combining traditional
classroom instruction and flying time in the T-6B Texan II with virtual and
mixed-reality trainers, artificial intelligence, tablets and aviation apps.
The Avenger name is a
nod to former President George H.W. Bush, who flew the Grumman TBM Avenger, a
torpedo bomber, in World War II.
After kicking off the
prototype program in September 2020, the Navy’s first class of 19 student naval
aviators wrapped up their Project Avenger training at Training Air Wing 4,
Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Texas, April 1, and the Navy is now welcoming
a new class of Project Avenger students.
“Project Avenger is
revolutionizing Naval Aviation undergraduate primary flight training,” said
Rear Adm. Robert Westendorff, chief of Naval Air Training, in a recent news
release. “Our innovative team developed, refined and implemented the program
and this first class of primary completers is a testament to the entire team’s
hard work and dedication.”
Faced with a shortage
of pilots, particularly fighter pilots, the military services have been looking
for ways to get student aviators through the training pipeline more quickly
while taking full advantage of the cutting-edge technology hitting the
marketplace, to include virtual reality headsets.
Lt. Cmdr. Josh
Calhoun, Project Avenger officer in charge, said CNATRA was tasked in January
2020 with modernizing the Navy’s primary flight training syllabus based off the
Air Force’s Pilot Training Next program, which integrates
virtual reality, artificial intelligence and advanced biometrics. That
initiative laid the groundwork for the Air Force’s latest version of the
training, called Undergraduate Pilot Training 2.5, which graduated its first
class of 10 students in March.
“We took their model
and said, ‘OK, let’s make it ours as far as Navy training,” Calhoun told Navy
Times. “And so we built from there.”
Project Avenger departs from the traditional primary
flight training in several key areas including syllabus flexibility, the
increased use of virtual reality trainers and simulators, and a smaller class
size for optimal personalization.
Rather than a
mountain of papers, books and checklists, each Project Avenger student received
a tablet with on-demand access to aviation-specific apps and pre-loaded course
content, according to the Navy. Students also used the tablets for flight
planning, briefing and in-flight navigation.
“Virtual reality and
mixed reality trainers, and 360-degree videos, allow students to witness real-world
flight training events, for example, an engine stall or recovery from a
tailspin,” according to a Navy release. “Pairing these virtual reality trainer
devices with realistic flight controls increases aircraft procedural
familiarity before a student ever steps into the cockpit of the primary trainer
aircraft — the T-6B Texan II.”
Whereas the
traditional syllabus is event driven, Project Avenger’s syllabus is driven by
student performance. If a student has mastered one skill, but needs more work
on another, the virtual reality headsets allow them to devote extra time to it.
Students advance once they achieve a certain proficiency level determined by
mathematical grades and instructor confidence. That means students could
conduct their first solo flight after completing eight events rather than the
usual 12.
Calhoun said students were divided into two groups in the
morning where one group would fly while the other group had down time in which
they could study and access a virtual reality trainer to prepare for the event
they would fly in the afternoon. After the first group of students completed
their flights, instructors would then assign them homework to complete using
the virtual reality trainers to target areas of weakness from their morning
flight.
“I would say it’s a
bit like a video game, and I hate to say that, but that’s kind of what it is,”
Calhoun said of the virtual reality trainers. “It’s a 360-degree goggle headset
that you put on, and then you’re seated in almost a commercial video game chair.”
When you stack the VR
simulator up against older, legacy simulators — the kind that use projectors
and hydraulics to move mock cockpits around — the difference is like watching a
movie on an IMAX screen versus a 32-inch television, Air Force officials have
said.
“There’s a reason
that people go to IMAX theaters,” Maj. Scott Van De Water, deputy director of
the Air Force Pilot Training Next program, told Air Force Times in 2018. “When
you go to an IMAX theater, and you’re watching the Blue Angels fly in
formation, there’s a level of immersiveness. You look around, and you’re with
the Blue Angels. That is compelling.”
Similarly, student pilots wearing the VR headsets see
nothing but the virtual environment enveloping them and hear the sounds pumped
into their ears. This makes it easier for the students’ brains start to react
as if they were actually in a cockpit.
Laying the groundwork
While the virtual
reality trainers aren’t best suited to prepare students with the muscle memory
to physically operate an aircraft, Calhoun said they lay the groundwork for
students mentally.
“It is not a
substitute for our traditional simulators, the operational flight trainer. …
It’s not a good thing to train your hands and feet, but it’s a great thing to
train your brain — how we’re going to operate the airplane and where we’re
going to go,” Calhoun said.
Project Avenger students spent approximately six weeks
training before getting into a T-6B II, the tandem-seat, turboprop trainer for
beginninng Navy and Marine Corps pilots. That’s up from the three to four weeks
of training for traditional primary flight students. Even so, Calhoun noted
that Project Avenger students “were expected to do more once they got into the
plane.”
For example, they
were supposed to know basic instrument approach procedures on their first
flight, and most Project Avenger students were successful in that endeavor, Calhoun
said. A traditional student, on the other hand, would not yet have received
that training.
Another fundamental
shift was student access to instructors. Seven instructors worked directly with
the small group of Project Avenger students, and the instructors worked closely
together to craft individual strategies for each student’s progression.
That setup — in
comparison to the usual 100 to 120-person squadron — was “part of the magic”
behind Project Avenger and allowed students to receive personalized training,
Calhoun said.
“Project Avenger had
a classroom where all of the instructors and students worked,” said Ensign
Andrew Harding, a student pilot, in a Navy news release. “This atmosphere
allowed for a continuous learning experience where students were constantly
asking questions and building a firm foundation.”
The Navy hopes
Project Avenger will reduce the total time it takes to produce a naval aviator,
a task that comes as the Navy copes with a shortage of nearly 100
fighter pilots in the fleet.
The traditional
syllabus takes students approximately 29 weeks to complete, and Project Avenger
students didn’t dramatically depart from that timeline — although the February
winter storms that plagued Texas and the COVID-19 pandemic affected how long it
took them complete all the material.
“We were able to
shorten the training time a little bit,” Calhoun said. “It wasn’t a lot this
time. But we produced, I think — we’ll see what happens as these students
continue flight training — I think we produced a better aviator.”
Next steps
CNATRA graduated 970
pilots from the strike, tilt-rotor, rotary and maritime pipelines in 2020, and
expects to increase that number to 1,206 in 2021.
Students in the first
Project Avenger class were randomly selected, but those with previous
experience may be chosen in the future.
“It was a purely
random selection, and the process will be similar next time,” Calhoun said.
“This class did not include any students with prior flight time, so we may
select a few students with prior flight experience to see how much of a
difference this program makes.”
The next round of
Project Avenger students are getting settled in now, and will be divided into
two classes of 12 students. While Training Air Wing 4 is the only unit offering
Project Avenger, Training Air Wing 5 at Naval Air Station Whiting Field in
Florida will start teaching the updated curriculum this summer.
The Project Avenger
students, who were assigned to the “Boomers” of VT-27 and the “Rangers” of
VT-28, were not measured against traditional primary flight students. But the
Navy tracked training time and flight-related data such as number of approaches
and flights, and the Navy will continue to track their progress as they move
through advanced training and out into the fleet.
The service plans to
expand upon this modernized approach to other phases of flight school beyond
primary training — all falling under the Naval Aviation Training Next program
umbrella. That includes Project Hellcat, a T-6B strike intermediate syllabus,
and Project Corsair, an advanced T-45C Goshawk strike syllabus, along with
programs for the other aviation pipelines.
Ideally, shortened
training times will become evident in those later phases, Calhoun said.
Ultimately, Calhoun
said, Project Avenger will become the standard training for student naval
aviators in primary flight training. But a few more iterations of the program
are needed before the Navy puts its final stamp of approval on Project Avenger
as the best method to train future naval aviators.
“Eventually, we’re
going to figure out what the right answer is, and this is just going to become
or bleed into the traditional primary syllabus. … I think we’ve got a couple of
iterations before we get it right enough,” he said.
“We certainly didn’t get
there with round one,” Calhoun said. “We’ll make improvements, we’ll go to
round two. We’ll see what happens with round three, and then we can move
forward and see if we can make Project Avenger our standard syllabus.”
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