How will U.S. tactical aviation forces train for future conflict? The prevailing budgetary climate will force a reduction in the frequency of training operations using actual equipment for some time to come. One cost-effective means for U.S. combat forces to conduct training is through the application of distributed simulation technology. A large scale simulation network which is based on the new Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) draft military standard for simulator networking and is accessible by the components of all three services will be the likely medium for conduct of this type training.

DIS networking protocols evolved from ground vehicle networking protocols developed during the U.S. Army/DARPA SIMNET program. It is therefore understandable that some misconceptions may exist over the capability of DIS to provide sufficiently accurate vehicle position and orientation data for high performance aircraft simulation. High performance tactical aircraft simulation requires a high degree of vehicle position and orientation accuracy for conduct of fully effective training. Operational community acceptance is dependent upon the capability of a DIS network to support all potential high performance aircraft combat interactions including air-to-air missile engagements and air-to-air gunnery.

This paper will quantitatively detail DIS vehicle position and orientation accuracies throughout the potential range of simulated aircraft maneuvering capability. Entity State (position/orientation) Protocol Data Unit (PDU) transmission frequencies for differing order Dead Reckoning (DR) algorithms will be empirically derived for the F-16 fighter aircraft performing the dynamic Paris airshow flight routine. Average Entity State PDU transmission frequencies will be presented as a function of dead reckoning algorithm threshold values. This data will show the capability of the DIS networking standard to support high fidelity aviation training tasks, even those requiring precise real-time position updates such as air-to-air gunnery, while achieving significant network bandwidth reductions.