In the “near future,” FlightSafety (Booth No. 5106) will be adding Pratt & Whitney Canada turboshaft engine training to centers in Curitiba, Brazil; Johannesburg, South Africa; Melbourne, Australia; and Beijing, China. The company currently offers training for the PT6B, PT6C, PT6T and PW206/207 at centers in Dallas/Fort Worth, Wichita, West Palm Beach, Montreal, Toronto, Paris Le Bourget and Singapore. Courses for the new 1,000-shp PW210 series will be introduced in the fourth quarter this year.
FlightSafety is here showing its Vital X simulator visual system, enhanced for more realism in helicopter training. “Visitors to FlightSafety’s exhibit at Heli-Expo will be able to view newly created high-resolution scenes developed specifically for EMS and offshore operators,” said George Ferito, director of rotorcraft business development. “We have also developed visual scenes for news gathering, law enforcement and other mission-specific training that will be available at our learning centers.”
The new low-altitude visuals include mountainous terrain, accident scenes, pinnacle landings, airports, hospital helipads and obstacles (such as power lines, trees and bridges). An oil rig visual is complete with lighting, articulation of the model and sea-state animations, all designed to enhance training realism.
Vital X features continuous high-resolution imagery for what FSI describes as “exceptional realism, with tens of thousands of processed elements and millions of features integrated into animated scenes of the real world. The system supports hundreds of six-degrees-of-freedom fully articulated moving models and 3-D sea states and is capable of presenting environmental conditions experienced during all phases of flight, including physics-based atmospheric and weather effects and continuous time-of-day operation.”
Since 1978, FSI has delivered more than 700 visual systems and close to 800 simulators. In the last five years alone it has developed sims for 60 different aircraft types. The company combines its Vital X PC-IG with its cross-cockpit Crewview displays for aircraft with side-by-side crew seating; for single-pilot fighter sims there is the Wasp (wide-angle single pilot) display. The Rigid Mirror Crewview enhances visual clarity and brightness, says FSI, while eliminating image degradation and edge-band distortion.
FlightSafety is also promoting its cockpit resource management (CRM) training for helicopter operations. Aimed at helicopter pilots, flight assistants, air ambulance crews, maintenance personnel and flight ops specialists, the four-hour course covers human factors, teamwork, communication, situational awareness, aeronautical decision making, leadership and safety. The CRM course is offered at FSI’s Fort Worth and West Palm Beach helicopter learning centers, according to Scott Fera, v-p of marketing.
FlightSafety has 15 full flight simulators for American Eurocopter, Bell and Sikorsky helicopters at learning centers in Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas; Lafayette, La.; Tucson, Ariz.; West Palm Beach, Fla.; and Farnborough, England.
