Discover why RYAN AEROSPACE is seen as a pioneer and global leader in virtual and mixed reality flight simulation training solutions...
ARCHER
MIDNIGHT
the challenge...
new stuff...
RYAN AEROSPACE engineered the F-16 Mixed Reality Flight Training Device by extending the same reconfigurable architecture it had already proven on Fighter Bomber Fundamentals, the modular hardware platform built to be reconfigured for new airframes rather than rebuilt from scratch. Where FBF had taken that architecture from virtual reality to mixed reality on the T-38C, this program pushed it a step further: reconfiguring it to match the cockpit of an active, operational fighter.
The device combined RYAN AEROSPACE's precision-engineered physical hardware with Metrea's NOR simulation and training software platform, giving instructors and students a mixed reality F-16 cockpit built to the same rigour as the aircraft it represents. Publicly showcased alongside RYAN AEROSPACE's other mixed reality devices as the F-16 MR enhanced Immersive Training Device, it stood as tangible proof that RYAN AEROSPACE's engineering could scale from a dedicated trainer jet to a frontline fighter without losing the fidelity a pilot needs to trust their training.
ARCHER MIDNIGHT mixed reality training device ...
Real Hardware. Real Avionics. A World Built Around Them.
When Archer Aviation set out to build a training device for the Midnight eVTOL air taxi, they needed more than a screen and a headset. They needed a cockpit a pilot could trust, built around the same hardware Midnight pilots would actually fly.
RYAN AEROSPACE designed and built that cockpit. At its core sit real Garmin avionics, the actual flight deck Midnight pilots read in the aircraft, not a simulated approximation of one. Around it, RYAN AEROSPACE and Vertex Solutions integrated Archer's own seat and flight controls, the genuine hardware supplied by Archer itself, engineered into a single physical platform a pilot sits in and operates exactly as they would in flight.
Mixed reality does the rest. Varjo's headsets and Aechelon Technology's image generator build the world beyond the cockpit, so a pilot's hands land on real switches and real controls while everything outside the canopy responds to the scenario. It is that combination, genuine avionics and genuine flight controls fused with a generated environment, that let this device become the first mixed reality training system built for an eVTOL aircraft, unveiled at I/ITSEC 2024 and shown again in 2025.
For RYAN AEROSPACE, it is proof that the same engineering discipline built on fighters and helicopters holds just as true for the aircraft that will define the next era of urban air mobility.
