At a top secret U.S. Air Force base tucked in a far corner of the Florida panhandle, a mix of active-duty and contracted instructors at the 19th Special Operations Squadron are shepherding a transformation at Air Force Special Operations Command and training airmen to join some of AFSOC’s newest squadrons.

A $25 million CV-22 Osprey simulator is just one of six aircraft simulators at Hurlburt Field, where the 19th trains the special operations aircrews stationed there. The 19th plans to add a seventh simulator next year.

AFSOC has ushered in small single-prop airplanes, such as the PC-12 and U-28, and boosted its number of combat aviation advisers with the 6th Special Operations Squadron. It has fallen to the 19th to stand up training programs for the 319th and 318th Special Operations squadrons, which fly the PC-12 and U-28.

“It’s certainly been busy here. There have been a lot of firsts for the 19th since I’ve gotten here, and I’ve only been here for about a year,” said Lt. Col. Dagvin Anderson, the 19th SOS commander.

Along with the new missions, the 19th also trains new AC-130E and MC-130E aircrews and uses squadron simulators such as the CV-22, MC-130H and newly acquired U-28 trainer to host proficiency training for experienced aircrews.

The training is done under a massive, 10-year, $1.1 billion Aircrew Training and Rehearsal Support II (ATARS II) contract the Air Force awarded Lockheed Martin in 2007. That was a follow-on from the original 1987 ATARS contract, also awarded to Lockheed Martin.

Subcontractors to Lockheed include FlightSafety International, which produced the CV-22 simulator, and CAE, which made the C-130 simulators. Other ATARS II bases include Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., and Harrisburg Air National Guard Base, Pa.

At Hurlburt, Anderson and his instructors have latched onto new technology to help students learn while also saving the Air Force money. Students receive interactive training from maintenance to aviation to calling in airstrikes without ever stepping onto a training range or lifting off.

The latest example came in March when a joint terminal air controller (JTAC) called in an airstrike from Fort Bragg, N.C., to a pilot flying over a training range at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. During the same exercise, a JTAC standing on the Eglin training range called in an airstrike that was executed in a simulator inside the 19th’s building at Hurlburt. It was the first time airstrikes have been called in from such distant places during a training exercise, Anderson said.

Deployment tempos

Training is often more realistic in a simulator than on a training range, Anderson said.

“With deployment tempos what they are, we just can’t get all the assets out there on the training range for the students,” he said. “But I can incorporate A-10s and weather and all sorts of things when the students are in the simulators.”

They don’t always have to be high-tech solutions either. To cut down on the time students need to spend inside an aircraft to learn the PC-12’s instruments and gauges, the 19th turned to an off-the-shelf Microsoft Flight Simulator.

“We were wasting sometimes an hour or an hour-and-a-half with guys just trying to figure out the buttonology. Now they can just do it in here,” said Maj. Mike Lee, a 5th Special Operations Squadron Reserve pilot who is also a contracted instructor at the 19th.

Students sit in a simulator that started out as a basic aviation yoke next to three screens showing the instruments and another screen simulating the flight.

“Students didn’t like it at first because they wanted to be in the plane, but then we got this simulator, the Hot Seat Chassis, which cost about $10,000 with all the pedals, and they all wanted to come here and use it,” Anderson said.

By teaching the basics in the relatively inexpensive simulator and not in the air, the service saves $1,000 per flight hour, Anderson said. The 19th saves about $3 million per year using simulators, he estimates.

“That simulator paid for itself in two months,” Anderson said.

Despite the technological advances, Anderson said he’s cautious not to depend too heavily on computer-based training.

A 2008-2009 U.S. Navy Inspector General investigation found the service had invested too heavily in computer-based training. Sailors were less prepared when they showed up to their ships and squadrons and didn’t grasp basic Navy concepts due to the new training, according to the report.

Anderson said he has a “high concern” that the Air Force and the military-at-large have become too dependent on Microsoft PowerPoint, calling it a “slide carousel.” But he made a case for the computer-based training at the 19th, describing it as more interactive because it allows the students to visualize the parts and procedures in the aircraft. The programs allow the students to take their work home on laptops, which also inform Anderson’s instructors how much studying those students complete.

“We can look at the program and it says how long the student works on it. So, it helps us know if a student is struggling, but he’s working really hard and just not getting it, or if he studied for 30 minutes over the weekend. It helps tell us even more about the student and his or her work habits,” he said.

Anderson, who flew KC-135 tankers and MC-130H Combat Talon IIs, understands the value of holding something in your hand and learning by doing, but he said it’s important that training squadrons like his embrace the technology.

“The technology is finally catching up to what we envisioned it could be so it’s a very exciting time right now to be here and see it all come together,” he said.