CAE-Bell Collaboration to Bolster Military Helicopter Operations

Founded in 1947, CAE Inc., formerly Canadian Aviation Electronics, is a Canadian manufacturer of simulation and modeling technologies and training services to airlines, aircraft manufacturers, healthcare specialists, and defense sector customers. The company operates a global network of manufacturing and training facilities and boasts annual revenues of $2.7-billion.

On 13 June 2023, CAE announced its CAE Defense & Security division has been awarded the U.S. Air Force (USAF) Rotary-Wing, Introductory Flight Training (IFT-R) contract to support the service’s Air Education and Training Command (AETC). The contract tasks CAE with providing flight training to USAF student pilots as part of the branch’s Helicopter Training Next program.

The $44.5-million initial contract award supports training of all initial USAF rotary-wing air, ground, and simulation training.

The program extends through 2033 with a maximum value of $110.6-million over the contract’s term. Introductory training will be conducted at CAE’s Dothan Training Center in Dothan, Alabama—home to the U.S. Army’s Fixed-Wing Training Services program.

CAE Defense & Security president Daniel Gelston stated: “This significant initial flight training program is part of CAE’s continued collaboration with the USAF to improve safety and training efficiency for the next generation of rotary-wing pilots. We continue to enhance training and mission readiness for our Department of Defense (DoD) customers by leveraging the expertise of our industry partners with CAE’s decades of global training experience.”

CAE will implement the IFT-R training program by dint of a fleet of Bell 505 Jet Ranger X aircraft specifically configured to meet the unique demands of AETC’s initial USAF helicopter training. Conversely, the IFT-R Ground-Based Training System leverages advanced simulation and interactive media, thereby providing Next-Generation rotary-wing training to future USAF aviators.

CAE will work in collaboration with industry partners such as Bell Textron, Alpha 1, and Navigator Development Group Inc. to prepare USAF rotary-wing student pilots for their follow-on training in the Helicopter Training Next pipeline.  

The IFT-R program is one of several initiatives in which CAE is currently supporting rotary-wing aviation in the Alabama region. The Army Advanced Helicopter Flight Training Services contract at Fort Novosel was awarded to CAE in 2020. In keeping with the provisions of such, CAE will provide classroom, simulator, and live-flying instructor support services germane to the CH-47 Chinook, UH-60 Black Hawk, and AH-64 Apache helicopters.

In 2023, CAE was awarded a subcontract to support the U.S. Army Flight School Training Support Services at Ft. Novosel. The deal will see CAE build and deliver new full-flight simulators appropriate to the CH-47F and UH-60M platforms and implement software configurations for reconfigurable collective training devices.

A trusted and perennial technology concern, CAE digitalizes the physical world for purpose of developing simulation training and critical operations support solutions for professionals in critical roles—primarily aircraft pilots. Worldwide, CAE employs some 13,000 employees across more than two-hundred sites and training locations in forty countries. CAE’s simulators instantiate the culmination of 75-years of intensive research and innovation and are broadly considered the world’s highest-fidelity flight and mission simulation devices. Nevertheless, CAE remains perpetually about the work of developing new generations of cutting-edge, digitally-immersive training and critical operations solutions.

FMI: www.cae.com