It has long been recognised that a man's performance deteriorates with time away from his operational task, and that the level of knowledge at any particular point can be related to time spent in the current activity. The Submarine Flotilla of the Royal Navy has for some years established Continuation Training schemes in order to maintain and improve the knowledge base of operators. This has proved to be particularly effective when men are landed during refits or routine harbour periods, and when drafted to support tasks in shore-side Naval Bases.

The provision of regular training schemes utilising aural tape and hard copy of contact signatures obtained from previous patrols still only partly satisfies the problem, as the training does not fully reflect the on-board situation. The ultimate solution would be to give each operator a complete sonar simulator suite into which pre-recorded signatures could be played. Besides the unacceptable costs, the size of the equipment precludes its installation in the shore training centres.

The Royal Navy has achieved real-time training for its sonar operators by creating a complex signature Toolbox programme loaded into a modified desktop AT PC. Contact signatures are created without the need for real recordings and new effects can be instantly demonstrated. The system, being of generic design, is not equipment specific. The sonar ratings therefore receive continuation training in analysis and classification on a high fidelity, real-time, low cost, part-task trainer.

The presentation will describe and demonstrate the technical innovations of the real-time training schemes.