Ukrainian drone pilot training program turned into a video game so anyone can do it

London- Players around the world can now purchase and play at home a simplified version of a first-person drone training program developed and used by the Ukrainian military. The game’s evolution – from battlefield training tool to home entertainment – ​​is a notable first and is directly tied to Ukraine’s continued efforts to repel The large-scale Russian invasion that lasts four years.

The “Ukrainian Fight Drone Simulator” (UFDS) is available to purchase online for about $30. It features the same ultra-realistic physics and piloting controls that have helped teach Ukrainian drone pilots to search and destroy tanks, missile launchers and Russian troops. The full simulator is available, free of charge, for use by all members of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Vlad Plaksin, executive director of the Drone Fight Club Academy, a facility that trains Ukrainian military drone pilots, was one of the main developers and driving forces behind UFDS. The academy has trained more than 5,000 Ukrainian military drone pilots since its creation early in the war, and collaborated last year with the US Air Force for a training session at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

Plaksin told News themezone that one goal in turning the military program into a video game is to train young Ukrainians to fly drones, to “give them the ability to not go into the trenches with rifles.”

Interest among young Ukrainians in all things drone-related has skyrocketed during the war, thanks in large part to the country’s military drone pilots, who Plaksin said had achieved heroic status.

“Most young people want to fly, they want to hit [Russian targets]”I want to grow in this new world of robotics,” he told News themezone.

The game’s creators call it a “public adaptation of a leading ultra-realistic FPV [first person view] drone trainer, based on lessons from the Ukrainian frontline”, which offers players the opportunity to “learn to fly like a frontline pilot, tackle real-world mission scenarios and feel the thrill of modern FPV warfare.”

With hyper-realistic details, it includes different types of drones to pilot in combat missions against Russian targets, with weather conditions and other variables that aim to provide an experience realistic enough for anyone to learn and practice the basics of drone warfare.

There are many games that offer similar FPV warfare experiences, such as driving tanks, piloting fighter jets, and commanding submarines. But UFDS is the first developed directly from military software.

Ethical concerns?

While many games have likely been used as teaching tools by armed forces around the world, they were first developed as games. UFDS inverts that model, bringing a real-world military training tool to home screens.

Plaksin acknowledged the ethical concerns around creating a game that allows young people to pretend they are piloting deadly drones in such a realistic way, calling it “a very sensitive issue” but noting that the game is not unique in this regard.

“There are many other simulators that do the same thing and we are not going to open anything new,” he said.

UFDS is also not the first video game that an army has used as a pseudo-recruitment tool.

The “America’s Army” series, launched in 2002 and developed by the U.S. military, is widely seen as the first overt use of video games to boost recruiting by a national military. While the series was not as realistic as UFDS, it served a similar purpose.

Could Russia take advantage?

Plaksin says that the Ukrainian game, in essence, is a tool for people to acquire “basic knowledge about drones, but at the same time we try to do it with maximum security, so as not to share confidential information.”

To avoid revealing details that the Russian military could use to train its own pilots, there are significant differences between the publicly available version of UFDS and the version used at the Drone Fight Club Academy to train Ukrainian military operators.

Those differences have to do “mainly with tactics,” Plaksin told News themezone. “It gives you everything you need, but it doesn’t give you the tactics. I think that’s the main difference between the versions.”

He said some of that simply means cutting back on what, for players, could be the most tedious parts of drone warfare. Players may not want to spend 30 minutes flying their virtual drone to hit a target, for example. Therefore, the gameplay is deliberately made more arcade-style, while maintaining highly realistic controls and user experience.

This means there is “less understanding of missions, less understanding of how to fly at long distances,” which is a vital part of drone pilot training.

“When you fly in the [real] drones, you see the area and you need to read the map and compare it with what you see,” Plaksin said. “In missions, it’s very important. In arcade games, it’s not important and we don’t put it in because it won’t be interesting to the players.”

UFDS is still a very niche game, with only about 50 people playing online daily. These detailed military simulation games often gain a small but loyal following, and rarely enter the broader gaming community.

But Plaksin is trying to change that and broaden his appeal. He is helping to organize a championship that hopes to “maximize the level of people playing” and encourage competition among players.