Armed air vehicles have become one of the most dangerous elements beginning with their appearance on the battle stage. Adding a third dimension to the battlefield, these mechanical birds have proved to be indispensable ever since the Battle of Benghazi. What is comparably more dangerous are pilots, who undergo a rigid training for any kind of scenario and figuratively merge with their aircraft. Against this background, ATAKSİM was developed in order to render T129 pilots more courageous.
Thanks to advancements in aviation, air vehicles adopted a more complex structure. Thus, the training required for pilots flying these birds, became longer and more laborious. In parallel, pilot training created a huge burden on the annual budget of armies. Today, a single AH-64 Apache pilot serving with the British Army is required to undergo training for 1,5 years, which costs £3m. Another indicative example is that the cost of training an F-16 or F-4E 2020 pilot serving with the Turkish Air Force amounts to approximately $10m. However, it is also the fact that, throughout their combat readiness training, pilots can perform only some scenarios and sometimes even partially. This translates into lack of experience and limited flight hours for pilots having recently completed their training program.
The Birth of Simulators
Pilot training is composed of different areas like flight, air-air, air-ground and joint operation. The total cost of training for a single pilot is the sum of a number of items: air vehicles doomed with short economic life, consumable material used during flight and sustainment cost of pilots. The rise of this total cost has led armies to develop new training solutions. Thence, flight simulators were born. Together with the advancements in computer technology, these simulators transformed into online platforms through which all kinds of scenarios can be performed. At present, they are an indispensable part of pilot training.
