Where did people go if they needed to brush up on single-engine landings ? How about the navigator needing one more look at offsets before the bombing competition ? They went to the flight simulators.

A simulator gave hands-on training to aircrew members in a safe environment. With the simulator, aircrews were able to practice procedures which would normally be impossible or impractical such as engine flame-outs, no power landings, weapons launching, in-flight refueling, and bomb/navigation procedures.

"The simulator teaches crews how to fly the airplane," said Lt.Col.James A.Eggers, chief of the FB-111A Training Devices Operations Branch at Pease AFB in 1986, "Crews can transfer what is learned from the simulator environment to real airplanes." The simulator was used to teach aircraft systems knowledge, aircrew coordination and emergency procedures. The simulator integrated all of this training into one environment, something that would otherwise had to be done in real aircraft. "We can see how a crew reacts under stress to unexpected conditions," the colonel added. " We can observe their reactions, detect improper procedures and correct them."

Aircrews practice regular missions, low-level bombing procedures and often use the simulator for concentrated instrument flying practice. A typical simulator mission lasted approximately three hours. Crews were given a 45-minute briefing on their mission before each simulator session, and after each session, instructors spent 30 minutes to an hour reviewing the session and critiquing the crew members on their performance. According to Colonel Eggers, "Two hours of working on tasks in the simulator frees one hour of flying time in an FB-111A, and use of the simulator costs much less than flying the actual plane. Simulator training also prepared aircrews for any emergency they might have while flying the FB. Emergency procedures for an engine out, or an engine on fire can be practiced routinely in the simulator, but not in an FB-111A cockpit. Simulator instructors could set up 250 different combinations of malfunctions, from a minor leak in the hydraulics systems to a breakdown in every major system, and have aircrews practice emergency procedures. Aircrews were also trained in aircraft ejection so they knew when they should eject and so they could react instinctively.

The equipment needed to run the FB-111A simulator filled a good-sized room with more different types of electronic equipment than any other system in the Air Force at the time. It took more electronic equipment to simulate a function than to actually perform the function in the real world. One major reason for the complexity of the simulator is that it had to keep up with an aircraft that was constantly changing. As a result, simulator equipment ranged from early '60s equipment to 'state of the art' multi-layer computer boards.

At Plattsburgh AFB, the base's simulators were housed within the black hangar and on the railroad cars behind the base power plant. The simulators were part of the 380th Avionics Maintenance Squadron's Aircrew Training Devices Branch. The KC-135 simulator, housed on the rail cars, provided procedure training for KC-135 pilots and copilots. Five trainers were housed in the black hangar. They were an egress, short range attack missile, bomb-navigation and two full mission simulators. The mission simulators contained the most equipment. The FB-111A simulators had six computers representing several different generations of computer development. They were a fully functional FB-111A cockpit, motion base, and a day/night visual system.

The visual system, a recent modification to the FB-111A simulator, provided computer-generated images which allowed aircrews to practice takeoffs, landings, formation flying and air-to-air refuleing in all types of weather and situations. In 1980, they were 60 simulator technicians, in the branch who kept all six trainers operating 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Since the simulators had everything an aircraft had, simulator technicians must knew every box, panel ,button and indicator found in the cockpit of a real aircraft. With the ever-rising fuel costs, simulators were being hard-pressed to fill ground training programs. For every hour spent flying the simulator, hundreds of gallons of fuel were saved.

Since the simulator may "fly" as much in one week as an aircraft did in a month, equipment failures were inevitable, and here is where the technicians earned their pay. By performing not only organization and intemediate level, but depot level maintenance as well, the simulators operated with only two to four percent of down time.

A scene at the simulator an hour before the first mission of the day could show a technician with an arm load of test gear, a hand full of test probes, a stack of schematics and a malfunction that refuses to yeld its cuase. Odds were, the problem would have been resolved, and as the aircrew walks in the door, the technicians would say, "Yes sir, it's ready to go."

In October 1981, after two years of construction and at a cost of nearly $4 million, the FB-111A Training Center, Building 2743 at Plattsburgh AFB, was completed. Units from the 4007th CCTS and the 380th AMS had been busy setting up shop in the new building which housed the CCTS, two FB-111A mission simulators, one bombing and navigational trainer in addition to the associated maintenance and support functions and personnel. The building was dedicated during ceremonies held on November 6, 1980, in memory of two Plattsburgh FB-111A crewmembers, Maj. Thomas M.Mullen and Capt. Gary A.Davis, who lost their lives on October 6, 1980 in a crash off the coast of Maine.

Movement of the FB-111A Mission simulators and the Bomb/Navigation trainer to the flight simulator new facility began on October 1 with the disassembly of mission simulator Number 2. Reassembly in the new building was completed by the end of the next week. The Bomb/Nav trainer and missions simulator Number 4 was disassembled and was back in commission in the new facility by the middle of December. The cockppit portion of the mission simulator was moved wothout disassembly, a task that had never been attempted before. The move was assisted by the Singer-Link company, of Binghampton, NY., who originally built the simulator, along with the original "Blue Box", a simulator that many WW II veterans trained in for night missions. Also assisting in the move was the Chauvin Trucking Company of Plattsburgh who provided a special purpose truck that allowed the cockpit portion to stay intact during the move. The new building was to provide 1,100 additional square feet of maintenance room plus conference rooms and office space.

The new facility, shared by the Flight Simulator Wing and the Combat Crew Training Squadron, was ten feet wider and longer than the simulator's previous location. The computer room floor was raised up 18 inches to allow an air conditioning unit to blow 50 degree-air underneath the floor in order to cool the computers down to 80 degrees. There was nine computers in the building worth $7 million in total at the time.

On February 12, 1990, Capt. James Whitney, 530th CCTS Instructor and Col. Paul Malandrino Jr., 380th BW Commander, took the final ride in an FB-111A simulator. This last flight lasted an hour and the simulator was to be reconfigured for the F-111G at Cannon AFB, N.M. This flight training device had been used at Plattsburgh for about 150,000 hours, wich is equal to 17 years of continual use.