The ORCA Planning and Utility System (OPUS) is an interactive military aircraft mission planning tool. Its autorouting and analysis functions make OPUS useful for mission effectiveness and survivability studies. The system performs force level planning as well as generating terrain aware threat avoiding individual sortie routes. OPUS optimizes in the target area including sensor pointing and weapon release maneuvers. OPUS includes utility functions for manipulating terrain information, threat data, weapon characteristics, vehicle performance data, and route plans. Validated performance and threat data to run the model is available from ASC/ENS at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.

OPUS is used for both operational and analytical applications. The incorporation of functionality to parse Air Tasking Orders (ATO) has made OPUS a valuable tool for the USAF Combat Air Force which has licensed it for use at every wing. This functionality (sometimes referred to as the Hill ATO Defragger) is available in OPUS version 2.47 and later.

Features of OPUS include:

• An autorouter that produces threat avoiding, goal seeking, terrain aware routes for both conventional and Low Observable (LO) Radar Cross Section (RCS) signatures.
• New threat analysis techniques result in route generation speeds far faster than traditional time step / ray trace approaches.
• A variety of figures of merit for attrition analysis and a documented C3I model. A SAM engagement model and an AI endgame model are implemented for both Monte Carlo simulation and static attrition analysis.
• Saves time in target area planning by automatically planning weapon releases that conform to common tactics for various weapons including standoff, gravity, PGM, and interdependent platform / smart weapon planning. Eliminates the need for manual weapon release sequence placement.
• Automatically plans weapon release maneuvers including release heading constraints, straight and level times, damage assessment, navigational update, and offset aim point imaging.
• Support for importing routes from AFMSS and exporting OPUS routes and threat laydowns to AFMSS.
• Exports routes in the Enhanced Air Defense Simulation (EADSIM) format.
• Multiple resolution terrain model limits amount of terrain data required without sacrificing resolution in critical areas. OPUS models terrain avoidance as well as defensive and offensive terrain masking effects. OPUS can develop TF/TA routes.
• Performs automatic search planning through relocatable target areas.
• Allows optimization and analysis of event driven signatures (e.g., bomb bay doors opening, onboard jammers).

• The ability to import and export air tasking orders in USMTF ATO95 and ATO98 formats.