CAE chose I/ITSEC 2014 in Orlando to announce on December 2 that its first UH-72A flight training device (FTD) has been accepted for training by the US Army Aviation Center of Excellence at Fort Rucker, Alabama, the home of Army aviation. A second FTD is currently under construction and is scheduled for delivery in the middle of 2015.
"This high-quality flight training device was delivered and operational at lightning speed," said Dale Alldredge, UH-72A Acquisition Management Analyst, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Capability Management - Lift. "CAE has delivered a training device that will serve new helicopter flight students and instructor pilots much more than we originally anticipated."
Derived from the Eurocopter (now Airbus Helicopter) EC145 multirole helicopter, the UH-72A Lakota replaces the UH-IH Iroquois and OH-58A/C Kiowa. Some 290 helicopters had been delivered to the US armed services as of January this year, with the Army slated to receive a further 20 by the end of the year.
CAE’s subcontract with Airbus Defense & Space called for the company to design, develop and deliver a Level 6 capable FTD, providing an aircraft-specific cockpit with the fidelity and performance of a full flight simulator, minus the motion capability. It features a motion/vibration seat and a wide 200-degree by 70-degree field-of-view display system driven by the next-generation CAE Medallion-6000 image generator to immerse pilots in a high-fidelity synthetic training environment. The UH-72A FTD for the U.S. Army has also been fielded with the CAE-developed Common Database (CDB), enhancing the Army's ability to leverage existing U.S. Government-owned databases to support their helicopter training requirements.
"We are honored to support the Army's UH-72A Lakota flight training that will take place at Ft. Rucker, and particularly pleased we were able to deliver early on an aggressive delivery schedule," said Ray Duquette, President and General Manager, CAE USA. "From contract award to acceptance into service, we delivered this simulator in less than six months and almost three months ahead of schedule. This will help the Army meet a critical training need, and allow the Army to efficiently and cost-effectively begin balancing live and synthetic training for its new UH-72A primary helicopter trainer.”
"This high-quality flight training device was delivered and operational at lightning speed," said Dale Alldredge, UH-72A Acquisition Management Analyst, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Capability Management - Lift. "CAE has delivered a training device that will serve new helicopter flight students and instructor pilots much more than we originally anticipated."
Derived from the Eurocopter (now Airbus Helicopter) EC145 multirole helicopter, the UH-72A Lakota replaces the UH-IH Iroquois and OH-58A/C Kiowa. Some 290 helicopters had been delivered to the US armed services as of January this year, with the Army slated to receive a further 20 by the end of the year.
CAE’s subcontract with Airbus Defense & Space called for the company to design, develop and deliver a Level 6 capable FTD, providing an aircraft-specific cockpit with the fidelity and performance of a full flight simulator, minus the motion capability. It features a motion/vibration seat and a wide 200-degree by 70-degree field-of-view display system driven by the next-generation CAE Medallion-6000 image generator to immerse pilots in a high-fidelity synthetic training environment. The UH-72A FTD for the U.S. Army has also been fielded with the CAE-developed Common Database (CDB), enhancing the Army's ability to leverage existing U.S. Government-owned databases to support their helicopter training requirements.
"We are honored to support the Army's UH-72A Lakota flight training that will take place at Ft. Rucker, and particularly pleased we were able to deliver early on an aggressive delivery schedule," said Ray Duquette, President and General Manager, CAE USA. "From contract award to acceptance into service, we delivered this simulator in less than six months and almost three months ahead of schedule. This will help the Army meet a critical training need, and allow the Army to efficiently and cost-effectively begin balancing live and synthetic training for its new UH-72A primary helicopter trainer.”
Tim Mahon