ACMI (air combat manoeuvring instrumentation)

ACMI stands for air combat manoeuvring instrumentation. NATO's glossary of acronyms and abbreviations lists the term in exactly this form and gives the French equivalent as instrumentation de suivi de la manœuvre de combat aérien. The full glossary is available from the NATO archives.

In practice, ACMI is an instrumentation system used in air-to-air combat training. It captures where aircraft are and how they are performing, so that instructors and aircrew can replay an engagement afterwards. A U.S. Air Force technical study describes it as a way to determine aircraft attitude, position, velocity and acceleration, and to use that data to rebuild each aircraft's trajectory in three dimensions (U.S. Department of Defense-hosted study).

What an ACMI system records and reconstructs

The core output of ACMI is a record of the engagement. The system captures aircraft-performance parameters during the flight, then uses them to reconstruct the path each aircraft flew. Attitude, position, velocity and acceleration are the quantities the U.S. Air Force study identifies.

This record serves two training purposes named in the same study: air-to-air combat training and the debriefing of large-force employment flights. A debrief built on recorded data lets participants review what happened in the engagement rather than relying on recollection.

Pods, range equipment and the ground segment

An ACMI system has an airborne part and a ground part. Historically, the airborne part has included externally mounted pods carried on the aircraft, and the ground part has included special range equipment. Data from the aircraft is typically transmitted to a central facility, where it is decoded, recorded and displayed.

• Airborne instrumentation: equipment carried by the aircraft that gathers position and performance data.
• Data link: the transmission of that data to the central facility.
• Ground processing: decoding, recording and display of the data for monitoring and debriefing.

Related terms: ACMR and ACMS

Two neighbouring terms appear next to ACMI in the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence acronym glossaries: air combat manoeuvring range (ACMR) and air combat manoeuvring simulator (ACMS). Both are listed in the 2008 edition and the 2014 edition. Read them as separate things: ACMI is the instrumentation, a range is the airspace or facility where training takes place, and a simulator is a synthetic training device.

ACMI in NATO training documents

NATO material uses the term in the context of live air-to-air training. A NATO Science and Technology Organization meeting proceeding refers to "Live Air - Air Combat Manoeuvring Instrumentation" as part of a joint combined training capability. The text is in the STO proceedings. For suppliers, this shows the term is used in allied training documentation as well as in national air force practice.

What it means for a supplier bidding on Canadian public contracts

Federal tender opportunities, including Department of National Defence requirements, are published on CanadaBuys tender opportunities, the Government of Canada's portal for doing business with the federal government. Bid teams tracking air combat training work should search that portal for the full term and for the acronym, along with related terms such as ACMR and ACMS, since solicitations may use any of them.

Requirements differ from one solicitation to the next, so read each statement of requirement closely. Check how the buyer describes the airborne equipment, the ground processing and display, and the debriefing outputs, and respond to each as written.