f-16  mixed  reality  training  device  ...

RYAN AEROSPACE helped build the US Air Force's first mixed reality trainer for an operational fighter.

Until late 2023, every mixed reality device RYAN AEROSPACE built for the Air Force - under Pilot Training Transformation and Fighter Bomber Fundamentals - centred on the T-38C trainer jet, not a combat aircraft. In November 2023, the Defense Innovation Unit asked Vertex Solutions to bring that technology to the F-16, a frontline operational fighter, and Vertex Solutions again turned to RYAN AEROSPACE.

Working within the 19th Air Force's Fighter Bomber Fundamentals and Virtual Training for Air Dominance framework, RYAN AEROSPACE reconfigured its proven training device architecture to match the F-16's cockpit, integrating Metrea's NOR software, Varjo's mixed reality headsets, and Bugeye Technologies' avionics panels.

The defining challenge was fidelity: an operational fighter's cockpit demands a standard the T-38C programs never had to meet. That RYAN AEROSPACE met it on the same reconfigurable architecture built for PTT and FBF proved the platform could adapt to any airframe - not just trainer jets.

the  challenge...

Building a mixed reality trainer for the T-38C was one engineering problem. Building one for the F-16 was a different order of problem entirely. An operational fighter's cockpit carries the accumulated complexity of a real combat aircraft: dense avionics, weapons systems displays, and a level of instrument and switch fidelity that a dedicated trainer jet was never designed to have. Replicating that faithfully, in mixed reality, meant a step up in precision from anything RYAN AEROSPACE had engineered before.

It also had to happen fast. The Defense Innovation Unit structured the work as an Other Transaction prototype agreement, the same fast-turnaround contracting approach used on Pilot Training Transformation and Fighter Bomber Fundamentals, this time to prove that an operational fighter, not just a trainer aircraft, could be brought into mixed reality training on a defense-relevant timeline.

the  solution...

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.

the  impact...

Pilot Training Transformation gave the US Air Force something it hadn't had before: a fleet of virtual reality training devices built to defense-grade standards, deployed at genuine scale, and engineered to grow with the mission rather than age out of it.

For the US Air Force, it meant a faster, more flexible, more cost-effective way to build pilot proficiency, backed by hardware that held up under real operational use. For RYAN AEROSPACE, PTT became the foundation for everything that followed: the delivery record, the manufacturing discipline, and the modular engineering approach that the US Air Force would later call on again for Fighter Bomber Fundamentals, when it was time to take that same fleet from virtual reality to mixed reality.