PRD-17 · SIMULATION
Maritime Helicopter Trainer
The sub hunt, from above
Overview
Find the boat. Fix it. Attack it.
The Maritime Helicopter Trainer is a browser-based simulator that trains an anti-submarine helicopter pilot and the ship's air controller together: vectoring, sonobuoys, dipping sonar, magnetic anomaly detection and the torpedo attack, against a submarine that does not want to be found. An anti-submarine prosecution is won by a pair, a controller on the ship who builds the picture and a pilot who flies it, and the trainer covers the decisions of both and the hand-offs between them. It is part of the Varuni Simulation Suite.
What it does
Inside the system.
PIC
Build the picture
Sonobuoys, the ship's sonar and the helicopter's dip feed one picture. A passive hold is a bearing, and range comes from target motion analysis.
VEC
Vector the aircraft
The controller picks a datum on the plot and sends a course and distance. The pilot sees the steer and flies it.
BUY
Hear the field
A buoy's report reaches its side only through a receiver in range. Fly out of reach and the field goes quiet.
DIP
Dip from a hover
The array goes down only when the helicopter hovers. Hovering burns fuel, and the card shows fuel, endurance and a bingo flag.
MAD
Confirm over the datum
MAD is very short range. A mark means the aircraft flew almost over the boat, and a quiet hull gives less to find.
ATK
Attack
A straight-run or a snake-search lightweight torpedo, a depth charge, or an anti-ship missile for a surface contact. Each is flown to the target.
Under the hood
Engineering depth.
What it models, by area. One sortie runs in five steps across two seats: vector, lay, dip, mark, attack. Each step is a decision the crew has to make, and each one can go wrong.
2ST
Vectoring and two seats
The controller sees the side's fused picture; the pilot sees the helicopter's own sensors and the vector. Neither sees the other's screen, so the crew has to talk and the vector has to be good. The vector is advice: the pilot flies with the helm, quick controls and a hover button.
SON
Sonar and sonobuoys
The dipping sonar is lowered from a hover and raised before flight, with its mode, a cavitation warning and its contacts on the console. Twenty sonobuoys are carried and laid, and buoy reports go on only through a receiver in range and in radio line of sight.
MAD
Magnetic anomaly detection
The MADMAN seat shows a recorder trace, a flashing annunciator and a mark log with bearing, target and range. Reach goes as the cube root of the hull's magnetic moment, so an amagnetic-steel or titanium hull is marked only from close.
WPN
Weapons and attack
Straight-run and snake-search lightweight torpedoes, a depth charge for close work, and an anti-ship missile for a surface contact. Red torpedoes are flown too: wake-homing and wire-guided, with a blind run before the seeker enables.
ACF
The aircraft
Turn rate, climb rate, ceiling and speed bound every order, and hovering and cruising burn fuel at different rates. Surface radar with PPI, A-scope, B-scope and MTI, EMCON, ESM, an infra-red camera, and a datalink that ties ship and helicopter.
SUB
The sea and the submarine
Sea state, wind, layer depth, sound-speed profile, rain, shipping and biologic noise are set per game. Each submarine class carries its own noise and magnetic signature, so a quiet or amagnetic boat is harder to find.
Deployment
Where it runs.
Each console is a web page on any operating system, so a pilot and a controller can sit in different rooms: nothing is installed on the training network. It runs on-premise or fully air-gapped, with the charts and the data held on your own server. The helicopter, its sensors, buoys and weapons are library entries, not code, and the waters are set per game.
Frequently asked
Straight answers.
What is the Maritime Helicopter Trainer?
The Maritime Helicopter Trainer is a browser-based simulator from Varuni Systems that trains anti-submarine helicopter work for the ship's air controller and the aircrew together: vectoring, sonobuoys, dipping sonar, MAD and the torpedo attack.
Who is the Maritime Helicopter Trainer for?
Helicopter crews (pilots and sensor operators), ship air controllers working the anti-submarine plot, instructors who run, hold, rewind and replay a game, and training schools.
What does the Maritime Helicopter Trainer model?
Controller-to-pilot vectoring, a dipping sonar lowered from a hover, sonobuoy fields and their radio reach, magnetic anomaly detection, lightweight torpedoes, depth charges and anti-ship missiles, helicopter fuel and bingo, and the sea and the submarine.
How do the controller and the pilot train together?
Each has their own console, and they can sit in different rooms. The controller picks a datum and sends a vector; the pilot sees the steer and the distance and flies it. Each sees only what their own sensors and the vector give them, and a unit assigned to a user is the only unit that user commands.
How is the Maritime Helicopter Trainer deployed?
It runs in a web browser on any operating system, on-premise or fully air-gapped, with the charts and data held on your own server. Nothing is installed on the training network. It carries about 1,000 units in one exercise, at up to 100x time acceleration.
How do instructors control, rewind and replay a game?
The instructor picks a game and a seed, sets the speed, and starts, pauses and stops it. The umpire plot shows all units, weapons in flight and the vector. A moment can be named, then jumped to or rewound to, and a rewind is rebuilt exactly. A recorded run plays on a scrubbing timeline, beside a second run if wanted, and tracks and events export as CSV.
How can I see the Maritime Helicopter Trainer?
Contact Varuni Systems through the contact page or at info@varunisystems.com to request a demonstration. Tell us your helicopter, your ship and the waters you need to train in, and we will propose a configuration and a phased rollout.
Start here
See Maritime Helicopter Trainer
against your problem.
Tell us what you're trying to train, track or communicate through and we'll tell you honestly whether Maritime Helicopter Trainer fits - or whether you need something else built.
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