Recommendation 15

HM Government Accepted

UKMFTS is taut by design, but the MOD recognises that the significant variations in the training demand signal have demonstrated a need for increased flexibility. Several initiatives aimed at increasing UKMFTS capacity are already being introduced. Building sufficient resilience into the system to cope with changing demands is an important lesson, but additional flexibility also comes at an increased cost, which will require agile contracting solutions to ensure costs can be recovered when the system is not used to capacity. Contracting spare capacity to NATO Allies is one method of achieving these recoveries. Within the fast-jet training pipeline, an initiative is being enacted to use some of the unprecedented leaps forward in training technology which will see significant capacity improvements in synthetic training, both ground-based and in the live-virtual construct. An exciting area being considered is the introduction of a live-virtual construct, so Aviation Procurement: Winging It?: Government Response 9 far unprecedented in the UK. With augmented reality, formation training, artificially intelligent adversary aircraft, and air-to-air refuelling simulation aircraft can become an augmented image in the trainee’s field of view. This reduces the need for support aircraft, meaning more pilots can be trained for the same level of flying resource used. Within the multi-engine pilot training pipeline, another initiative is underway to increase training capacity through optimising the use of our existing assets. This involves reviewing the original training design, learning/training techniques and examining how the existing equipment may be refreshed in light of new technologies. Whilst the programme is early in its development, it aims to include the ‘downloading’ of synthetic training to the lowest practicable level. When these lines of enquiry have been exhausted, consideration to procure additional assets will be made to deliver the required throughput. To improve resilience in the event of aircraft unavailability, a network of outsourced training providers has been established over the past two years. This provides accessible training alongside an opportunity to build relationships with partner nations and widens the training development aperture of our own system through consideration of other training equipment and techniques. The cross-pollination of information has become an essential requirement to ensure the training quality within NATO training establishments remains at the very highest level. In October 2023, the UK joined an important NATO initiative—the NATO Flying Training Europe (NFTE)—which aims to pool and contract spare flying training resource amongst NATO allies. The UK has recently benefitted from NFTE by training fast jet pilots at their facility in Italy and is now a full member. Additionally, with a shortfall of approximately 30% in pilot training capacity across Europe, access to this partnership enables the UK to offer training to partners in the UK to mutual benefit. Whilst this is useful in the current UKMFTS construct, in the longer-term, it also offers an opportunity to bring in funding to the UK system, whenever the system is not being used to full capacity training UK pilots. This not only provides value for money for the taxpayer, but creates additional opportunities for UK Industry and additional skilled jobs here in the UK.