BOEING HAS SHELVED immediate plans to equip its proposed China headquarters site in Beijing with flight simulators and will instead concentrate on other training initiatives.
The company had been considering establishing an integrated pilot- and technical-training centre, fitted with simulators. The proposal was revealed in 1994, by Boeing during the opening of its Beijing new spares-support centre, (Flight International, 7-13 December, 1994, P8).
Its new China headquarters, due for completion in 1997 will include classrooms, but Boeing is reluctant to operate and maintain its own simulators in China.
According to Boeing China president Michael Zimmerman, the company will support alternative initiatives, such as the use of two Boeing-owned 737 simulators by China's Civil Aviation Flying College in Guanghan, Sichuan Provence. The two CAE simulators including, one full motion system, have been supplied by Boeing, on a five year loan.
McDonnell Douglas is also working on a similar move by providing a refurbished MD-82 flight simulator for use by China Northern Airlines. The deal will give the Shenyang-based carrier independence from having to use China Eastern Airline's MD-82 simulator.
Airbus Industrie and China Aircraft Supplies in the meantime are expected to complete their joint venture Beijing training and service centre in early 1996. The $50 million site will be equipped with two flight simulators, one of which will be an Airbus A320.
Further south in Kunming, Yunnan Provence, FlightSafety International (FSI) is finalising plans, for a separate aviation- training centre in partnership with a local investment company. The centre is due to open in late 1996, equipped initially with Boeing 737-300 and 757/767 simulators (Flight International, 6-12 September).
The Kunming Flight Safety Aviation centre will consist of a flight crew-accommodation building and a two-bay simulator complex, large enough to accommodate up to six full-motion systems. Its training programme is to be modeled on FSI's existing centres in the USA and Paris, France.
Source: Flight International
