Air Force Moves Forward with MyBase, Publishes RFP

The U.S. Air Force has published the RFP for its ambitious virtual world effort, MyBase. All applications are due October 3. The proposal was initially unveiled in February to investigate the potential of an end-to-end virtual world for recruiting, training, and mission planning. From the RFP's Statement of Needs it seems like the focus, at least for the pilot program, is more on "simulating a training classroom on a typical Air Force base with both a flying and technical training mission" with live and video components, collaborative document sharing, and a persistent environment. The environments will need to handle 75 simultaneous users from around the world with up to 600 total users. Of course the pilot will be smaller scale than the initial white paper's vision, but I still find it a pretty exciting project that could become something very big. If nothing else, the Air Force seems to really get the benefit of virtual worlds for long-distance learning.

"The experience inside the virtual world will be 3D, geospatially accurate, and real-time," explains the Statement of Needs. "Users will participate in MyBase as avatars as well as take part in real-time live audio/video activities. The virtual world is persistent and when users are in-world, any changes they make to MyBase affect it forever forward and for all users until new changes occur. Users feel immersed in their experience as they engage with other users and content."