The Reconfigurable Device is the first-of-its-kind for large aircraft simulators to reconfigure the cockpit area to represent two different models of the C-130J aircraft. Credit: USAF / Airman 1st Class Jayden Ford.

The US Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) has announced the addition of a C-130J simulator called the ‘Reconfigurable Device’.

The simulator has been acquired by the centre’s Agile Combat Support Directorate Simulators Division (AFLCMC/WNS).

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Manufactured by Lockheed Martin Rotary and Mission Systems and CAE USA, it will allow crews to use a single simulator to train on multiple aircraft models.

The Lockheed Martin-built C-130 is the US Air Force’s (USAF) principal tactical cargo and personnel transport aircraft. It is operational in more than 70 countries.

The Reconfigurable Device is the ‘first-of-its-kind’ for large aircraft simulators. It features two different models of the C-130J.

C-130J MATS programme manager David Groendyk said: “It only takes four hours to swap over from one model to the other.”

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In April, the first device was installed at Quonset Point Air National Guard (ANG) station in Rhode Island.

AFLCMC said that this device can represent the ‘slick’ model, which is the base C-130J operated by Air Mobility Command (AMC) and the HC-130J model operated by Air Combat Command (ACC).

Groendyk added: “The device at Quonset is really a collaboration with the Air National Guard, which operates the HC aircraft and AMC which operates the C model aircraft.

“These are different aircraft, different missions, different cockpits, but similar in many other ways.”

Another device at Little Rock airforce base in Arkansas, US, is reconfigurable to represent the two different vertical configurations of the C-130J aircraft.

This reconfigurable device at Little Rock AFB can represent both the Block 6.0 and 8.1 versions of the C-130J.

Lockheed Martin delivered the 2,600th C-130 Hercules tactical airlifter to USAF Special Operations Command in October 2019.

 

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