Thales awarded training contract for daring-class destroyers by UK

Thales UK has been awarded the second phase of a contract for the provision of interactive 3D media to be used for training maintainers of the long-range radar on the Royal Navy new Daring-class (Type 45) destroyers. This second phase, under contract with BAE Insyte, is to provide SCORM* conformant, web-enabled, training media for Type 45 maintainer trainers. Thales was awarded an initial contract in April 2007 for the provision of 3D training media for the RESM** and medium-frequency sonar systems. This was the first of its type to be accepted by the Royal Navy. This initial training media, also created under contract with BAE Insyte, is now being used by the Type 45 Training Unit as part of training courses being run at HMS Collingwood and, as the learning assets and elements are SCORM conformant, training will also later be delivered over the UK Defence Learning Portal. The extensive use of flexible interactive training media provides a cost-effective alternative to the use of traditional training equipment. The design of the assets allows maintenance training to be either instructor-led computer-aided instruction, or self-paced computer-based training. In both modes the maintainer can interact with photo-realistic animated 3D models of cabinets and equipment to work through sequences of learning that cover activities such as ‘start-up/shut-down’, ‘remove/install’ and ‘fault finding’. Marion Broughton, head of Thales UK’s training and simulation business, says: “Thales has set the gold standard for the development of maintenance training assets within the Royal Navy and this has been recognised by this second contract to provide innovative training for the Daring-class ships.”