The US Air Force specifies C-130 aircrew training events for electronic combat (EC) as optical guided threats, infrared (IR) guided threats, and radar warning receiver (RWR) events. Training for these events is defined as proper application of tactics, techniques, and procedures to recognize and defeat the threat. The training media can be the weapon system trainer (WST) or aircraft. The on-aircraft training can be on a range, but this approach is costly, and has problems associated with availability, scheduling, and short notice access requirements due to aircrew availability. To eliminate these issues, in many cases the on-aircraft EC training is accomplished using 'flash cards' or 'hand-signals' to indicate a threat event completely devoid of the on-aircraft defensive systems. Training for the RWR may include flying in airspace with known radio signals in order to show a symbol on the RWR threat display. Based on these indirect threat alerts, the aircrew must then respond with the correct tactic or technique to defeat the threat. This method of on-aircraft training does not provide a realistic EC training experience nor does it integrate training into the aircraft defensive system suite.

The Virtual Electronic Combat Training System (VECTS) provides low-cost, rangeless threat recognition training using the existing on-aircraft defensive system displays and audio; and supports tactics training with real-time feedback using the existing on-aircraft electronic countermeasures, in-flight maneuvers and terrain to defeat the threat. The VECTS training simulations are hosted on a laptop computer that also serves as a planning station for the training missions. Additionally, VECTS records the training mission events and provides a capability to review the training mission post-flight. This paper will review the VECTS training methodology and test results which demonstrated that this training approach provides a realistic training solution using the on-board defensive systems to inject pseudo threats.