Fort Huachuca - Libby Army Airfield's Air Traffic Control (ATC) recently installed the ADACEL MaxSim Fixed Base Precision Approach Radar (PAR) training simulator to train and maintain monthly PAR hour requirements for all Army civilian ATC personnel assigned to Fort Huachuca.
This platform is the standard ATC simulation system procured for Army aviation units and can reduce controller training times significantly and reduce fully certified controllers monthly training requirements up to 50 percent.
"Controllers are required to complete a minimum of 10 final portion radar approaches, five of which must be live and the other five may be simulated," said John Edwards, ATC Training supervisor. "This is where the new simulator allows us to remain proficient on the PAR equipment and the approaches." The system can be used either with an instructor or individually with a variety of scenarios preloaded or ATC personnel can create their own scenarios for realistic and individualized situational training.
ADACEL provided all hardware, software, training, visual databases and models, software support and contractor logistics services for the system installed at Libby Army Airfield. Libby ATC currently has the Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System (STARS) AT-Coach radar simulator for approach training, but did not previously have the ability to simulate PAR approaches which require an individual ATC to work one-on-one with the aircraft.
"Other than pen, paper and a person drawing and talking there was no reasonable way to simulate the approaches," explains Edwards. "The new equipment is very close to an exact replica of the equipment in the live control room and also has voice recognition and responses."
The ADACEL system is able to simulate military/civilian aircraft performing realistic and common flight patterns and approaches with helicopter functionality, a highly accurate speech recognition system, an easy-to-use scenario creation tool that allows for creating scenarios in minutes, and a Student Log-in feature that tracks student usage of the simulator.
"An infinite amount of realistic approaches can be conducted whenever necessary" said Edwards, explaining the importance of the simulator to ATC. "Instead of having to wait for a pilot to request that specific approach which can be very unpredictable."
Libby Army Airfield hosts a large variety of aircraft, from commercial aircraft to unmanned aircraft systems and helicopters, where precision approaches are utilized several times a day. The system can be connected directly to the ADACEL MaxSim Tower simulator to provide real time controller-to-controller training scenarios and maintain a high level of ATC training and proficiency at Libby Army Airfield.
Editor's note: Greg Harrell, chief, Air Traffic Control for Libby Air Airfield, contributed to this article.
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