It isn't easy, and it certainly isn’t inexpensive to fly a helicopter into Heli-Expo for display on the convention floor. Bringing a fuselage climb-in mockup, however, has often been the only other option for exhibitors, until today’s sophisticated cockpit procedures trainers (CPTs), advanced training devices (ATDs) and even flight training devices (FTDs) came along.

Lightweight flat-screen-paneled full-function CPTs and even wrap-around visuals with a central, full-featured Robinson R44 FTD are de rigeur at simulation expert Frasca International, which has strategically co-located its booth with one of its prime customers, Bristow.

AIN’s reporter took an early morning lesson in the state-of-the-art FAA level 5 Robinson R44 FTD and learned that the 60-Hz custom-compiled (from actual flights) data creates an extremely realistic and effectively challenging flight training environment. The wraparound screen compensates for the lack of motion on the platform, and it was but moments before this pilot-in-command was sweating through a realistic lift-off and wobbly hover. Once through translational lift the flight did settle out.

“We've added a bunch of realistic scenarios for helicopter pilots to practice,” explained Bob Summers, simulation project manager for Frasca, as he pointed out an automobile accident with EMS on-scene unfolding on the ground ahead of us. We bypassed the accident and proceeded back to the airport for a landing lesson, which went marginally smoother than the lift-off.

Primary students have it a little easier, in the beginning at least. “Our helicopter FTDs have SimAssist,” explained Randy Gawenda, a sales team member from Frasca's Urbana, Ill., headquarters. The software can be invoked by the instructor to make the FTD a bit less challenging to fly in the beginning.

“The program learns what the student is doing, and gradually tightens the parameters, as a flight instructor would, until the student is controlling the FTD completely on his own without SimAssist’s help,” Gawenda said. Students and instructors can work up to practicing realistic autorotations (using the element of surprise, which is generally absent while practicing in the aircraft, for safety reasons); loss of tailrotor effectiveness and other critical emergencies.

Frasca also displayed an advanced CPT for the Sikorsky S-92 helicopter at its booth. The CPT includes power and cyclic control, as well as a plethora of multi-touch panels for simulating flipping switches, pushing buttons, pulling circuit breakers and twisting knobs. The flight management box is also portrayed realistically.

Outside of Frasca, Orlando-based Elite Simulation Solutions (Booth 3659) brought two ATDs to the convention. One simulates a turbine helicopter and includes an enclosure, while the other, the TH22, is an R22/R44 piston helicopter ATD, sitting open to the booth. Three screens create a sense of depth to the visuals (critical in helicopter VFR training). The ATDs are less finicky than the FTDs when it comes to control inputs. “There is a lot of good value in a flight school having an ATD,” Elite’s director of business development Wayne Keyes told AIN. “When turbine helicopters cost thousands of dollars an hour to train in and even Robinsons cost more than $400 an hour, an ATD can make flight training affordable for students,” he continued. The piston trainer is approved by the FAA for 7.5 hours of primary or instrument training, according to Keyes.

Is a CPT, ATD or FTD in your future? Which one your company decides to go with depends more on the type of flight training your operation engages in, and less on how many zeroes you can get behind the currency sign, if you ask any of the flight simulation providers in the exhibit hall.