Havelsan to Hand Over F-16 Simulators to Turkish Military in 2021

Turkey’s Havelsan will deliver F-16 Virtual Maintenance Training Simulators to the Air Forces Command later this year.

Havelsan Jet Aircraft Systems Program Manager Koray Uyar had told state-run Anadolu Agency last month that they are trying to sell the systems “to many F-16 users around the world.” The company official said that they also examined and reviewed other maintenance training simulators around the world and that “there is no virtual maintenance training simulator prepared in this depth and detail.”

“Therefore, we are now in contact with the manufacturer of the aircraft, and planning to provide this simulator to the countries where the aircraft is sold, through them,” he said. The F-16 jets are manufactured by U.S. company Lockheed Martin.

In the first phase of the F-16 simulator project, he said 6 full-mission simulators and 20-weapon tactical trainers were provided to 6 different main jet base commanders.

Uyar explained that by enabling these simulators to be connected, they created an infrastructure for the carrying out of large and comprehensive exercises in a simulation environment.

Stating that they developed training solutions for aircraft maintenance technicians in the second phase of the project, Uyar noted that they provide a training device for aircraft maintenance technicians to detect a malfunction in the aircraft possible and fix it as quickly as possible.

“When our pilots encounter a malfunction during their flight, they deliver the plane to the aircraft maintenance technicians together with the preliminary information of the malfunction. From that moment on, aircraft maintenance technicians are expected to identify and fix the fault as soon as possible. The Maintenance Training Simulator was developed for this purpose. We developed this simulator by working with Havelsan engineers and aircraft maintenance technicians of the Air Force Command, who have the most important information about the malfunctions of F-16 aircraft.”

Pointing out that the F-16 has a large number of malfunctions due to its very complex structure, Uyar said that it can take a very long time for the aircraft maintenance technician to determine what is the original cause of the malfunctioning when a fault is reported to them, Daily Sabah reported citing Anadolu Agency in late March. “Among the F-16 malfunctions, we developed this simulator for the most encountered and difficult to detect malfunctions by working with aircraft maintenance technicians. Approximately 1,000 malfunctions are simulated within the scope of our product.”

Noting that they offered a new opportunity for the training of aircraft maintenance technicians to the Air Force Command with the simulator, Uyar noted that “the aircraft maintenance technician sits in the cockpit just like in the real environment, performs some tests in the cockpit, makes some predictions about the origin of the fault according to the results and signs he or she gets on the screens. Then, they review the F-16 technical orders and perform the first determination of the origin of the fault.”

“Often, additional measurements have to be taken on the real plane and some parts have to be removed for this purpose. We help our aircraft maintenance technician students to disassemble and install the desired devices on large touch screens on a 3D modeled plane as it is done on a real plane. Our students take measurements from the part they disassembled from the plane and as a result, if there is a problem with the wiring, they repair the wiring; if there is a problem with the devices, they replace the devices with a new one. After this process is completed, they return to the cockpit and run internal tests in the cockpit as they make sure that the fault is fixed," he explained further.