With close to 30 helicopters taking part - some of them real, some of them simulated - the Aozou exercise demonstrated the operational benefits of connecting different simulation systems together in a network.
Two major Thales innovations were crucial to this success.
For the first time ever, two French Army simulation centers physically located more than 150 km apart were connected together to operate as a network, with a total of 12 simulated helicopters interacting in the same tactical scenario. The simulation centers involved were at Phalsbourg (1st Combat Helicopter Regiment) and Etain (3rd Combat Helicopter Regiment) in Eastern France. Both simulation centers are equipped with the Helicopter Mission Trainer (HMT, also known as EDITH for the French Army), a multi-platform tactical training system developed by Thales with the French defense procurement agency (DGA).
The second milestone was the integration of the EDITH simulators with the operational information system so they could share the same tactical situation. Simulated helicopters were presented to commanders and other actors in the exercise in the same way as actual helicopters.
The Aozou exercise showed how Thales technologies interconnect the real world and the virtual world to overcome hardware constraints and reduce the cost of live training by deploying fewer actual helicopters. For the armed forces, these integrated solutions bring a new dimension to operational training in terms of theatre location, the number of actors that take part and the types of scenarios that can be used.
