US Air Force Enhances Classroom Experience with VR Paint Simulator

Painters with the U.S. Air Force 588th Aircraft Maintenance Support Squadron Corrosion Control shop at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, are some of the first to do their refresher paint training in a virtual paint simulator.

This concept for VR training started years ago when Todd Lavender, 402nd Aircraft Maintenance Group corrosion control process manager, wanted a better way to train aircraft painters. “Our original paint training system was a two-dimensional setup,” he said. “You would paint on a screen, but it was not realistic enough for the painters, so they didn’t get as much benefit from that system as they should have,” said Lavender.

“He wanted to improve the paint products on the weapons systems, to reduce maintenance flow days, and to increase productivity on the back end as these aircraft went back in to service,” said Joe Jahnke, F3 Solutions vice president. “We are teaching in a virtual world where you will see a C-5 or Global Hawk aircraft and get hands-on painting experience before you actually go into the hangar to start painting on a real aircraft.”

“My hope is for them to be able to qualify on different aircraft platforms, such as the C-130, C-5, C-17 and F-15 aircraft, so if we were short on painters we could bring these guys over to augment a paint crew in another facility,” Lavender said. “I believe this puts our painters head and shoulders above the rest. There is not another system like this in the DOD, and I hope to transition this to other depots.”

In the future, Lavender plans to transition VR training into an augmented reality setting. “This will allow the student to continue training in the hangar with the same helpers that were used in the classroom training portion,” he said. “They will use this while actually painting on the aircraft to further develop muscle memory and spray technique. This is important because it continuously reinforces what was learned in the classroom."