Collins Aerospace successfully completes Milestone C for TCTS Inc. II Air Combat Training System

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (Jun. 16, 2021) – Collins Aerospace, a unit of Raytheon Technologies Corp. (NYSE: RTX), has successfully completed Milestone C for the U.S. Navy’s Tactical Combat Training System II (TCTS Inc. II) program. In addition, Collins Aerospace was awarded the first production order for TCTS II. TCTS Inc. II was developed and built by Collins Aerospace and Leonardo DRS.

Completion of Milestone C marks the transition to system production, based on meeting all key performance parameters. Initial Operational Capability is set to be declared in 2022.

TCTS Inc. II is the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force Program of Record for 4th and 5th generation aircraft that enables highly-secure air combat training between the U.S. and international platforms. Through Live Virtual Constructive (LVC) technologies, TCTS Inc. II simulates various highly-contested combat situations, tailoring the threats to enable pilots to ‘train as they fight.’ It also collects relevant data to rapidly develop new tactics, techniques, and procedures in real time. It is the only air-combat training system with security certification that supports encryption requirements from Top Secret through Unclassified that is needed for today’s 5th-gen and 4th-gen legacy U.S. and coalition fighter aircraft. The scalable TCTS Inc. II system architecture is envisioned to create a fully-immersive environment for all aircraft, ships and vehicles in the U.S. Navy inventory, and the U.S. Air Force.

“The successful completion of Milestone C demonstrates the Live, Virtual, and Constructive-enabled capabilities of the TCTS Inc. II technology from Collins Aerospace,” says Heather Robertson, vice president, and general manager, Integrated Solutions for Collins Aerospace. “Enabling more realistic and secure cross-service air combat exercises is invaluable preparation for 4th and 5th generation pilots to ensure warfighters achieve the readiness levels needed”.

TCTS Inc. II securely connects to the Navy Continuous Training Environment (NCTE) to live aircraft allowing synthetic threats to stimulate the aircraft’s sensors via a Multiple Independent Levels of Security (MILS) architecture featuring an NSA-certified, Type 1 encryptor. When used with the onboard cross domain solution, the system enables sharing of information in near real time and uses SITL (Synthetic Inject to Live) to properly stress the warfighter with representative realistic threats. TCTS Inc. II is capable of Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACETM) certification which enables best-in-class third applications to be integrated easily and accelerates new capabilities to the warfighters. With the ability to host operational capabilities, TCTS II creates the infrastructure able to run both training and tactical waveforms across a multitude of platforms.