The deadly spiral of close air combat that ensues lasts only a few seconds before a short-range, infrared missile finds its target from high off-boresight.

Yet, in the midst of the F-16C's flaming demise, the only sound is an audible sigh from behind a computer console. At the National Air Intelligence Center, technical experts create complex scenarios that mirror real-life encounters.

In this case, both "pilots" walk away. The products resulting from this type of cyber-world conflict help modern warriors learn from and avoid mistakes that cost the cyber pilot his life in this scenario.

NAIC is the nation's premier air and space intelligence production center and is responsible for foreign aerospace threat assessments.

These assessments come to life through the use of modeling and simulation.

As Air Force Development Agent for Threat Modeling, NAIC will be a major contributor of the foreign threat representation in the Air Force Battlelabs.

The threat modeling and simulation capabilities of NAIC will enable the battlelabs to demonstrate and test the innovative concepts they are pursuing in an accurate threat environment. Critical to this overall process is NAIC's ability to develop detailed characterizations of particular foreign threats and provide them in the desired format. NAIC is developing capabilities for electronic access to its simulation information. This would enhance the Information Warfare Battlelab's abilities to test its ideas. David Drake, chief of NAIC's Threat Model Office said, "The role of the Air Force Executive Agent is to facilitate the development of verified and validated threat models that will be the cornerstone of the battlelab threat environment." NAIC also offers vast data bases of existing data and long experience in the analysis, production and dissemination of threat assessments.

Threat model like that shown conceptually above will be the cornerstone for the synthetic battlespace. The Air Force development agent will facilitate the threat model development for Air Force customers.

The battlelab's mission of identifying operational concepts within existing, mature technologies will be able to draw upon NAIC's long-standing expertise and knowledge base to more accurately represent the air and space threats our country might face in the future.

Retrun to July 97