AMC drafting requirements for future training platform

Air Mobility Command is in the midst of a three-step process to shape its future training environment, move toward a common training platform and upgrade its aging simulator fleet.

Col. Ryan Aerni, chief of AMC’s flight operations division, said this week the command is working to apply Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Brown’s “accelerate change or lose” directive to the mobility training enterprise.

“The first process is defining what a [Mobility Air Forces] common training platform looks like,” Aerni said Wednesday during the virtual Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference.

Air Force Materiel Command, working with AMC, released a request for information last month for input on its work to define a common training platform for the MAF and is planning an industry day Dec. 17.

Having a common platform, Aerni said, would make AMC’s 75 simulators -- which have an average age of about 24 years -- more connected and would allow the command to move more training to the virtual space.

AMC has also been drafting a training systems requirement analysis, which Aerni said will bring together the lessons learned from the common platform study as well as its survey of industry to shape requirements for training system upgrades, including a “simulator refresh.”

Aerni said the plan is to begin funding the simulator upgrades in FY-25 or FY-26 at about $120 million annually, beginning with the oldest systems.