“Exceeded our Expectations,” Says US Army
One month after training began on four Airbus Helicopters UH-72A LAKOTA helicopter flight training simulators at the US Army’s Flight School XXI (FSXXI) programme, FlightSafety International is receiving what it characterises as “outstanding reviews” from US Army operators.
Comments and observations from pilots, instructors, and management staff include: “The simulator exceeded our expectations and will be the new state of the art for FSXXI.”; “The glass mirror and enhanced database are impressive.”; “The Instructor Operating Station has tremendous capability.”; “The glass visuals coupled with the visual database are as good as they can get.”
FlightSafety is teamed with CSRA and L-3 to provide equipment and services to FSXXI. The LAKOTA simulation suite comprises Instrument Flight Trainers (IFT,) Operational Flight Trainers (OFT,) and Cockpit Procedures Trainers (CPT:) the company expects to deliver all 10 CPTs by the end of 2016 and that the total of 22 IFTs and OFTs will enter service by early 2019.
The advanced technology systems incorporated into the FS1000 simulators include a multi-function Instructor Operating Station, the VITAL 1100 Visual System, and a CrewView large-scale glass mirror display, which features fully collimated chin windows that provide seamless viewing from the bottom of the chin windows to the top of the cockpit windows. The system offers greater clarity, sharpness, and brightness for training fidelity, with true collimated images free of visible distortions and artefacts out to mirror edge. The true spherical shape eliminates the inherent distortion found in soft-film display systems. Its modular design produces the widest fields of view available.
The Instructor Operating Station features an intuitive interface, scalable graphics, and large multi touch displays. VITAL 1100 provides highly detailed mission- specific imagery with vastly improved scene content and exceptional environmental effects. Training benefits also include a whole-Earth environment and worldwide database that incorporates latest terrain information with geo-specific satellite images.
In addition to devices for the Lakota, FlightSafety has built 24 simulators for the Bell TH-67 and two Bell TH-IH Weapons System Trainers for FSXXI. The company has also participated in building 11 Sikorsky UH-60 A/L/M BLACK HAWK trainers, and three Boeing CH-47F CHINOOK simulators. Close to 600,000 hours of training have been provided, with 100% availability to date.
