Behind the screens: When AI trains Israel’s top guns

Simulators used to train Israeli Air Force pilots prepare them for long-range missions, stealth reconnaissance, and providing air support to ground troops.

By Adi Rubinstein, JNS

Entering the Israeli Air Force’s Hatzor Base, near Ashdod, one might think nothing has changed in recent years. But as you proceed into the heart of the facility, it becomes clear that what was will never be the same again.

The base is busier than ever, and encounters with younger and older airmen alike testify that we are in the midst of war. This young generation has been busy protecting the homeland for 15 months now.

A decade ago, this writer was here for an Independence Day story, trying out the simulator that pilots use to maintain operational readiness in case they need to respond quickly.

Since then, our world has been turned upside down, and suddenly, alongside training and long hours in the simulator, it seems our pilots are logging the same hours in the real thing, in the skies of the Middle East.

Along with the change in spirit, the base will soon see a material change as well. A facility being built these days will allow for more simulator work and diversify pilots’ training, enabling them to work in larger formations and accommodate more aircrew members.

Its construction will be completed in the coming years, and the new generation will be using this simulator, further widening the gap between the blue and white Air Force and air forces across much of the Western world, certainly in the Middle East.

An F-15 simulator

At the entrance to the MTC (Mission Training Center), its commander, Maj. T., awaits us. A kippah on his head, a smile on his face, and above all, much patience for a reporter who is about to climb into an F-15 simulator for the second time in his life and, as usual, embarrass himself.

Israeli Air Force commander Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar attends the “Spark” UAV inauguration ceremony at Hatzor Airbase, Sept. 10, 2023. Credit: IDF.

From T.’s words, who participated in the strike on Iran, one can understand that with each such strike, pilots improve in the simulator as well, as it allows them to better understand the topography of each location, including places where no one imagined we would be (Sanaa in Yemen, for example).

This is exactly the discussion that will accompany us during our visit to the Mission Training Center: How much can the simulator, especially in the AI era, simulate that real feeling of war.

“Look, there are many advantages to the simulator, and over the years it really keeps improving,” T. explains.

“I’ll clarify—in fact, in the simulator you can reach extreme situations that the chance of them happening in real training or combat is very small, but you can turn the simulator into one that constantly puts you in these extreme situations. Indeed, it happened more than once in the past year that soldiers returned from distant and near operations and the first thing they said was, ‘Wow, it’s just like in the simulator,’ or alternatively presented us with things related to improving the simulator.”

Squadron commander Lt. Col. A., who participated in a strike on Yemen, joins the conversation as we begin walking toward the simulator:

“Besides the clear advantages of training, beyond what the simulator can provide 24 hours a day, first we must remember the financial costs as well. In the end, there’s savings of hundreds of millions for the army of course, especially in the period we’re in now. You can’t train at any moment and in any situation, but in the simulator it’s possible.”

‘Oct. 7 wasn’t in the simulator’

I ask A. how much the simulator really simulates what’s been happening here in the past year.

“First of all, true, October 7 was something that didn’t appear in any simulator,” he says. “I think all of us, like the entire army, understood and learned from what happened there, and since then the situation has completely changed, and from what happened there we’re all trying to learn.

“Another thing, physiologically the simulator can’t simulate of course the feeling of encountering g-force—that’s something you can only experience when you’re in the air. Perhaps in the future these are the dramatic changes that will be in the simulator, in my opinion, if they manage to incorporate them, that physical experience.”

When I get on the simulator, the commanders won’t let me “fly” in other countries’ territory, and I have to take off from Israel and stay within the country’s boundaries.

They’ll make sure foreign aircraft “infiltrate here” and attack me, although after what happened here in the past year, what enemy aircraft can still attack me?

In the simulator there are no Gazans on donkeys wearing flip-flops, but still I’m “attacked by foreign forces,” and as usual finish the simulator at a level that A. defines as “barely flight school material.”

I don’t know, I feel I was excellent, especially in the turns I took and the exercises I did, but T. explains that I took a turn like a “transport plane and not a fighter jet.”

I explain to him that like parking in Tel Aviv, I entered carefully so as not to hit the cars in front and behind. They almost laugh.

Fortunately, I finish the essay without vertigo, and I also manage to drop fragments over the sea and not hit civilian population. You can continue sleeping peacefully, there are those who are watching over you.

Another thing that isn’t in the simulator, or at least wasn’t shown to me, is the drone threat. The different sizes, different confrontations that the Air Force faces since Hezbollah and the Houthis entered the fight, force the entire security system to respond quickly.

“We know how to bring the data to Elbit [Haifa-based Elbit Systems Ltd., the primary provider of the military’s land-based equipment and unmanned aerial vehicles], and during the war we learned how quickly they know how to write code that will deal with the threat of drones in different sizes,” explains T.

“This allows the entire system, including the simulator, to deal with things differently and more efficiently, and of course together with the data that pilots bring from the field we know how to improve during the war.”

The aftermath of an Israeli strike on Houthi targets in Yemen. Source: Arab social media.

Following progress

With AI entering our world, the question arises where this field is going regarding the battlefield, especially when we’re talking about simulators.

When we meet female soldiers who can recite by heart the entire structure of the aircraft and its capabilities, we ask where this knowledge will go as technology develops: “That’s the question,” says T., “I assume we don’t know how to answer that yet.”

A. argues that “there is and will be no substitute for human experience, with all due respect to the simulator, when you’re in the sky physically, bodily, mentally—everything looks different.

“True, the simulator prepares you for extreme situations, and then even in mentally difficult situations when you’re in the air you know how to react calmly, because you trained in the simulator, but there are still events that occur in the battlefield and the simulator doesn’t simulate them, for example if God forbid you need to make a decision related to ejecting from the aircraft, in the end in the simulator it’s not like the real thing, because when you’re there alone the decisions made are different.”

U.S. and U.K. forces struck Yemen’s Houthis on Jan. 22, 2024. Source: Social media.

I don’t know whether this public relations tour was meant to strengthen the confidence we all have in the excellent people who shake our houses every evening (“Really sorry, we’re rushing to the target,” A. laughs at me), or to restore our lost faith in everything related to the state and army in the past year.

Either way, cynicism aside, at Hatzor you meet the best men and women Israel has to offer.

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