Ready for live flight testing: Collins Aerospace rolls out first training pod for U.S. Navy Tactical Combat Training Increment II program

• New air combat training system to significantly improve training realism and effectiveness while protecting tactics, techniques and procedures

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (Feb. 25, 2020) – Collins Aerospace Systems, a unit of United Technologies Corp. (NYSE: UTX), has completed the first pre-production Tactical Combat Training System Increment II (TCTS Inc. II) training pod for the U.S. Navy. This comes just months after the completion of the Critical Design Review (CDR) with the Navy that moved the program into the fabrication, integration and testing phase.

The training pod is a key component of the TCTS Inc. II solution, which provides connectivity to and from the aircraft for data and weapons activity during training exercises. The Collins Aerospace TCTS Inc. II training pod is the only one available with security that supports requirements for today’s fifth and fourth-generation combat aircraft.

“Along with our teammate Leonardo DRS, we’re continuing to help our customers move faster toward next-generation air combat training, providing a whole new level of realism and allowing them to truly ‘train as they fight’ in modern combat scenarios,” said Nick Gibbs, vice president and general manager, Simulation and Training Solutions for Collins Aerospace.

The TCTS Inc. II program is on track to replace the Navy and Marine Corps’ training range infrastructure to improve effectiveness of training across all squadrons and fleet forces. Supporting real-time operational air combat training for a variety of missions and platforms, the new system will enable blended live and synthetic training capabilities. The scalable and flexible Multiple Independent Levels of Security (MILS)-based open system architecture enables other U.S. armed forces and coalition partners to integrate this capability as well.