Simulators, Support For Royal Netherlands Air Force, Tech Enhancements For German Army

CAE has won a series of military contracts with the Netherlands, Germany, and other global defence forces, the company announced Thursday. The contracts, valued at more than $95 million, include a major contract with the Royal Netherlands Air Force (RNLAF) to expand CH-47 Chinook helicopter training at CAE’s Medium Support Helicopter Aircrew Training Facility (MSHATF) in the United Kingdom.

“Our MSHATF continues to be the most advanced helicopter training facility of its type in the world, and a perfect example of CAE’s capabilities as a training systems integrator,” said Martin Gagne, CAE’s Group President, Military Products, Training and Services.  “The RNLAF are a major third party user of the MSHATF and their decision to increase their training with CAE is a welcome endorsement of our strategy to offer contemporary turnkey training services tailored to customer requirements.”

Under terms of the contract with the RNLAF, subject to usual approvals, CAE will first upgrade one of the CH-47 full-mission simulators located at the MSHATF to ensure concurrency with the RNLAF’s current Avionics Control and Management System (ACMS) Block 5 CH-47D and new Block 6 CH-47F Chinook helicopters. Following the simulator upgrade, RNLAF Chinook aircrews will continue training at the MSHATF through 2018, gradually increasing training to at least 1,000 hours per year.

“With all these features, the simulator will enable the RNLAF pilots to train in the most advanced digital cockpit currently available for the Chinook helicopter,” according to LTC Cor van der Gaag, RNLAF’s project leader for both the new-build CH-47F Chinook and simulator upgrade program.

The RNLAF began training their CH-47 Chinook aircrews at the MSHATF in 2003.  Up until now, the RNLAF training curriculum included emergency, instrument, night-vision goggle (NVG), and tactical flight procedures during type conversion and recurrent training. The simulator upgrade will expand training to include a Terma-developed Chinook Aircraft Survivability Equipment (CHASE) electronic warfare suite and an L-3 Wescam forward-looking infrared (FLIR).  In addition, a digital Automatic Flight Control System (AFCS) will support training pilots to land in brown-out conditions.

CH-47F File Photo

Germany’s procurement office for information technology and management (Bundesamt für Informationstechnik und Informationsmanagement der Bundeswehr) has contracted CAE to provide major product enhancements to the CAE GESI command and staff training system for the German Army.  As part of the CAE GESI product improvement development program, CAE is enhancing the GESI constructive simulation system to address new and emerging training requirements, including operations other than war (OOTW), peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance, military operations in urban terrain (MOUT), joint and multi-national operations, emergency management and disaster planning.  In addition, the CAE GESI system will be expanded to run complex and comprehensive exercises from the company level up to division level.

FMI: www.cae.com