L-3 Communications announced this week that the Air Force has awarded it a $20.9 million contract option to deliver a second four-ship F-16 mission training center suite, bringing its total MTC contract value to $109.1 million. For the MTC suite, L-3 will build and deliver four high-definition simulators, for which Boeing provides the instructor/operator stations and brief/debrief systems. Bob Birmingham, president of L-3 Link, said the technologies—integrated with L-3 Link’s HD World—offer a solution that will “maximize pilot operational readiness while reducing training costs.” He continued, “For the first time ever in a simulator, F-16 pilots will be able to detect, judge the orientation of, recognize, and identify targets from the same distance as when flying an actual mission.”
Whether the F-35 fighter will get new engines from the Air Force’s cutting-edge Adaptive Engine Transition Program is a question that needs to be resolved at the Defense Department level, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told lawmakers May 17—and he anticipates an answer in the 2024 budget.