Royal Air Force: Business case study

The Challenge

The RAF was looking to diversify its training for pilots and cadets using Virtual Reality technology for better immersion. Traditional flight simulators cost millions of pounds per unit and require specialist centres for deployment. The environment is also restricted to a single aircraft. Real flight time has enormous cost and much of the procedural training and VFR (Visual Flight Rules) can be perfectly simulated in a virtual environment.

Our Solution

Owing to the extremely high hardware demands of running flight simulators in VR, high end workstation grade hardware was required in a portable form factor, that also met the rugged device requirements of being movable in regular RAF vehicles by untrained soldiers, and be deployable with minimal IT training in the field. Chillblast R&Ds the Blackbird – the world’s first fully rugged and drop rated desktop workstation with built in screen and keyboard.

The Outcome

“The RAF Air cadets, with the assistance of Chillblast’s technical expertise, have delivered a substantial roll out of ground-breaking rugged VR simulators that deliver twice the performance of a laptop solution in a simple, elegant package that can be deployed in moments by a non-technical end user, whilst delivering levels of immersion never before seen in simulation training”

- Wing Commander Martin Larwood Hughes - RAF