Daher has folded high-altitude hypoxia training into its training curriculum for owners of the TBM series of turboprop singles. The French aircraft manufacturer teamed with Southern AeroMedical Institute (SAMI) to provide the training. Daher furnished a TBM 850 cockpit simulator depicting the Garmin G1000 glass cockpit and Zodiac Aerospace oxygen masks to provide a realistic training environment, said Nicholas Chabbert, senior v-p for Daher’s airplane business and CEO of Socata North America.

The cockpit and masks are stationed within the SAMI hyper/hypobaric chamber in Melbourne, Fla., to simulate hypoxia. The training curriculum includes two hours of lecture covering slow-onset hypoxia and an hour of simulated flight in hypoxia-creating high-altitude conditions. The pilot will receive a post-flight review of oxygen saturating profiles.

Daher has worked with SAMI in recent years, and 80 TBM operators have undergone such training. But Daher has now formally incorporated the training into its TBM curriculum, Chabbert said. He added that he believes Daher is one of the few—if not only—general aviation airframers to include the training as part of its curriculum. “I believe aviation is lacking a little bit in that field,” he said. Daher released an operators bulletin last fall on “Review of High-altitude Operations” in the wake of the loss of a TBM 900 that crashed in open water off the coast of Jamaica on September 5 last year, killing TBM Owners & Pilots Association chairman Larry Glazer and his wife Jane. Hypoxia appeared to play a role in the accident.