The three-story IFAST houses several RF shielded test bays with the required power and cooling to allow the Air Force Test Center to satisfy the rapidly growing surge of avionics test work, which allows pilots and engineers to evaluate an aircraft’s electronic avionics systems and rehearse the mission prior to flying it. The systems fly at the IFAST before they fly at the open-air ranges, reducing the number of costly re-fly hours and enhancing efficiency and productivity.
The IFAST also hosts the TEMS that is comprised of multiple Manned Flight Simulation laboratories in support of weapons systems DT&E and OT&E. These systems consist of either Operational Flight Program or effects-based simulations. Today, the IFAST plays a significant role in the integration, test and evaluation of avionics, electronic warfare, cyber, radar and manned simulators across a wide spectrum of today’s operational and developmental platforms for such platforms as the B-1B, F-16, F-22 and F-35 platforms with system integration labs (SILs), hardware-in-the-loop (HITL) labs and/or flight simulators.
(Printable fact sheet)