HAVELSAN Develops Troubleshooting Training Simulator for F-16 Fighters

Turkish firm HAVELSAN have been developing maintenance and fault diagnosis simulators for F-16 aircraft.

In the first phase of the F16 Simulator Supply Project of the Presidency of Defence Industries (SSB), full mission simulators and weapon and tactics instructors were delivered to the Air Force Command by HAVELSAN for combat preparedness training for pilots.

Within this scope, HAVELSAN provides a one-of-a-kind unique simulator infrastructure, with six full mission simulators and 20 weapon and tactics instructors across six different main jet base commands.

Meanwhile, the F-16 Troubleshooting Training Simulator was produced in the second phase of the project to detect the aircraft failures at the earliest and render the aircraft operational.

HAVELSAN engineers worked together with aircraft maintenance training instructors employed at the F-16 Technical Training Centre within the Mürted Airport Command, and identified the failures that are seen the most, and are the most difficult to detect among F-16 failures. About 1,000 failures were simulated within the scope of Troubleshooting Training Simulator.

Connecting the simulators to each other, an infrastructure has been created for holding big and comprehensive drills in a simulation setting, without having to release any external tactical pictures.

This project is being carried out within the Deputy General Directorate of HAVELSAN Simulations, Autonomous and Platform Management Technologies. Jet Aircraft Systems Programme Manager Koray Uyar said, “We help our aircraft maintenance technician students disassemble and install the required devices through the large touch screens on a 3D modelled aircraft, as they would be done on actual aircraft, and help them measure from those points in a virtual setting.

“Our students measure the parts they have disassembled from the aircraft, and consequently, if there are problems in the wiring, they repair the wiring, and if there is a problem with the devices, they replace the devices with the new ones. Once this is completed, they return to the cockpit again, run the internal tests as they would inside an actual cockpit, and make sure that the fault is repaired.”

Compared to the other maintenance trainers available across the world, the F-16 Troubleshooting Training Simulator is the first troubleshooting training simulators prepared in this depth and detail.

– hvl/adj/aaa (Photo: HAVELSAN)