Air Force Wants Soldiers To Be Like Batman

In “The Dark Knight,” Gotham City saw a host of people following the example of Batman.

The United States Air Force appears to hope that some of its solider will do the same thing. No, they won’t don a cape and cowl and become vigilantes. Instead the Air Force wants to train soldiers to be as resourceful as the Caped Crusader.

The program began in 2004 and is called BATMAN. That stands for Battlefield Air Targeting Man-Aided kNowledge. The program aims to modernize the gear that commandos take with them on covert missions with the motto of “lighter, smarter, deadlier.”

“In the earliest stages when we were coming up with a name for the program, we were perceived as having a lot of gadgets,” said Reggie Daniels, BATMAN program engineer at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. “[Batman’s] devices allow him to have an advantage. That is what we’re trying to do.”

Participants in the program carry 160 pounds of equipment during a mission, Daniels said. That’s just the first requirement for the program.

This equipment includes communications gear, helmet displays, a headset and a computer, plus a host of batteries to keep all these electronics juiced in the field.

Special ops missions include setting up runways and landing zones as well as retrieving injured people from aircraft down behind enemy lines. “They have a very dangerous job,” said Daniels.

The program is designed to keep soldiers safe on covert mission.

But BATMAN wouldn’t be complete without a Batcave and the program has one–Wright Patterson Air Force Base. That’s where Daniels and his team devise, test and integrate technologies to boost Special Forces’ effectiveness.

And although Air Force officers don’t have a Batsuit, Daniels says another goal of the program is to find ways to carry all the necessary equipment on the “human chassis.”

A key BATMAN achievement has been reducing the weight of carried batteries by 25 percent. New fuel cells powered by methanol actually get lighter as the methanol is consumed, Daniels said, so instead of toting drained batteries, a soldier’s load decreases over time.

BATMAN has additionally pioneered the use of a small, chest-mounted computer to provide warriors with real-time logistical and tactical information. Speech recognition, or telling one’s equipment what to do – which is arguably more Inspector Gadget than Batman – is also in the works.