Leonardo has led a demonstration of live, virtual and constructive (LVC) training involving its M-346 advanced jet trainer in support of an EU-backed initiative seeking to enhance the quality of military pilot instruction.

The Future Integrated Training System for top pilots – or FITS4TOP – effort was launched early this decade, with the activity to explore the use of LVC technologies “able to integrate different operational scenarios involving air, ground and maritime forces”.

Leonardo says the demonstrated ‘system of systems’ showed the ability for “real aircraft in flight to be combined within a single mission with simulated elements and computer-generated friendly or adversary forces”.

The technology used includes “advanced hardware and software, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, new sensors, data links and state-of-the-art onboard avionics”, it adds.

“In recent days, a demonstration of the project’s capabilities was conducted at Leonardo’s production site in Venegono Superiore, involving an M-346 aircraft in flight, together with its associated ground-based training systems, to validate the FITS4TOP technology,” the airframer said on 26 January.

FITS4TOP was initiated as a 42-month project with a budget of around €5.2 million ($6.2 million), with approximately €4.4 million of that sum to be provided by the EU as part of the European Defence Industrial Development Programme.

The work has been performed by an industrial consortium representing four participating nations: Denmark, France, Italy and Romania.