New international rules, stronger competition, a changing market and a desire to reconnect with customers forced CAE into a simulator rethink
When Montreal-based CAE in 2004 viewed a rapidly changing aviation landscape, the need for lower-cost, more flexible full-flight simulators (FFS) became obvious. At one end of the spectrum were operators preparing to fly low-cost very light jets, some as small as a luxury automobile, but capable of mixing with the airlines at altitude on the other end were airlines wanting an affordable FFS to save money by keeping recurrent pilot training in-house. In between was a need expressed by CAE's long-time airline customers for revamped product lines and technologies across the company.
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CAE's response to the industry's pull was the advanced technology CAE5000 Series full-flight simulator, which debuted for the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737NG platforms early this year at CAE's Burgess Hill, UK and Amsterdam training centres, respectively. The 5000 Series is capable of simulating a wide range of aircraft, from VLJs to narrowbody jets.
Priced from C$9-10 million ($9-10 million), depending on the aircraft, the Series 5000 is designed to reduce FFS up-front cost by 20% and lifecycle costs by 25%, which tend to be two to three times the original price of the unit during a 20-year lifetime.
The lower cost in part is due to using 50% fewer parts in the Series 5000 than a comparable simulator, which means less maintenance. Order-to-operational delivery timeframe has also been compressed to eight months or less for the 5000 Series compared with more than a year for the company's existing top-of-the-line 7000 Series FFS.
The savings became possible with advances in structures, computers, electronics, displays, visual and motion systems and commercial-off-the-shelf equipment over the past decade, paving the way for a lighter-weight simulator that could accurately simulate the full-motion flight environment using rehosted flightdeck software, but without needing actual avionics components to reproduce performance fidelity. That also meant an economy of scale savings since the same basic platform could be used as the starting point for a broad range of aircraft models.
Broader Palette
The Series 5000 broadens CAE's simulation palette, which ranges from laptop computers to fixed-based flight training devices, as part of CAE's "Simfinity" product offering, to the C$11-18 million 7000 Series FFS. On the defence side, CAE supplies more than 30 nations with military training systems and services, a part of the business that accounted for more than C$600 million of the company's C$1.42 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2007.
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CAE had originally planned to offer the 5000 Series in two versions a lower-cost 5200 that qualified as a US Federal Aviation Administration "Level B" FFS, and the upgraded 5400, a top-end, higher-fidelity Level D simulator. Pilots can today use Level D simulators for all of their initial and recurrent training every six months while a Level B can be used for 80% of initial training and 100% of recurrent training.
The 7000 Series, designed for widebody aircraft and helicopters, goes one step further by using actual aircraft avionics components and rehosted software, allowing an operator to customise the FFS to match the details and performance of a particular aircraft in the fleet.
Level D First
CAE earlier this month became the first manufacturer to achieve Level D certification for its 7000 Series Boeing 777-200LR simulator for Delta Air Lines under the FAA's new Part 60 rules, which went into effect on 30 May and harmonise with International Civil Aviation Organisation standards for qualification and continuous improvement of the devices. The most significant change for CAE regarding Part 60 was the requirement that physical changes to airports must be reflected in the FFS database. The company in response launched a subscription-based programme called CAE True Airport that provides for the automatic update of simulator airport databases.
Action on the international front has intervened with CAE's plans for a two-tier Series 5000 offering, however.
Under proposed new simulator standards to be adopted next year by ICAO and supported by safety regulators including Canada, Europe and the USA, there will be seven "levels" of simulators, with Level 1 the most rudimentary and Level 7 the highest-fidelity full-motion device that includes the ability to simulate air traffic control interaction.
According to CAE, the new guidelines will require initial and recurrent training to be accomplished in a so-called Level 7 simulator, equivalent to today's Level D simulator. As such CAE is likely to market only the Level D version of the Series 5000. The new guidelines are likely to be mapped into regulation by the FAA and other international aviation authorities desiring harmonised regulations across borders.
For CAE, the 5000 Series is one of several success stories borne of the six-year, $600 million computer-aided design "Project Phoenix" research and development effort launched in 2005 to "revamp" production lines and technologies and to "get back to our roots", says Marc Parent, group president for simulation products and military training and services. Parent says the Canadian government and Quebec province provided 30% of the funding with a low-interest loan. Parent came to CAE in 2004 after 21 years at Bombardier Aerospace.
Customers were telling him to "bring the old CAE back", says Parent of his initial survey of the simulator industry, a request that translated to a desire for a closer connection between manufacturer and customer, among other requests. CAE first formed a customer advisory board to get input from the industry on how best to invest in the company, and then created a technical advisory board including customers like Air Canada, Finnair, Lufthansa, Ryanair and Southwest Airlines.
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Not far in the background was the spectre of new-found competition from nearby Mechtronix, whose price point for the upgradeable Level B simulator was a threat to CAE's two-thirds "competed" market share for the global flight simulator business. Mechtronix was the first to market with a generic software-based simulator with its Ascent full-flight simulator.
Gold Standard
The Montreal-based company shook up the industry several years ago when it introduced a C$6 million Level B FFS and C$10 million for a Level D upgrade. An order in 2006 from Lufthansa Flight Training, the gold standard of flight training centres, gave Mechtronix instant clout in the marketplace, and provided a powerful incentive for CAE to design and build a competitive product.
Chief competitors in the FFS market are Thales, Mechtronix and FlightSafety International, though FlightSafety typically does not compete for business outside its own operations. Parent responded by creating CAE's version of Lockheed Martin's renowned Skunk Works operation to consider a new approach to building a high-fidelity simulator. He selected the company's "best and brightest" engineers and relocated them in their own building for 90 days so as to "not be polluted by outside thinking". Heading the project was CAE's Mark Soodeen, chief engineer for the 5000 Series.
The team's marching orders largely came from customer input: lower the price, speed up the order-to-operational time decrease the cost of ownership, and deliver the same fidelity, reliability and quality as the 7000 Series. They were also asked to deliver a device that was more of a classroom than a simulator. Customer feedback had shown that instructors were irked by poor environmental controls, insufficient lighting and desks that did not have the means to stop papers or materials from rolling off when the simulator tilted.
As the work progressed, CAE hired industrial design firm Gad Shannon to assist in the aesthetic aspects of the new simulator. "Our fear was, if we took the design engineers we have today, we would have the same [simulator] with different curves," says Soodeen.
The resulting design for the 5000 Series provided as much as 60% more space inside the non-cockpit portion of the simulator compared with the 7000, in part by moving electrical equipment into the cockpit, into the frame below or off-board the simulator. The system includes PC-based visuals, high-resolution liquid crystal on silicon projectors and electrically actuated six degree-of-freedom motion.
The unit itself was smaller and lighter, largely because of the use of more composites and a deck with 25% less depth - from 102cm (40in) for the 7000 to 76cm for the 5000. Overall, Soodeen says the 8,620kg (19,000lb) 5000 Series is about 40% metal, down from 85% for the 7000 Series, which weighs 11,340kg.
Engineers originally had targeted the new simulator for an all-composite deck, which would have brought the metal materials contribution down to 20%, but later decided to stay with metal to avoid having to complete an accelerated life test to prove out the safety of the structure. Using more composites helped with more than weight: in the flightdeck area alone, CAE now saves 200-300h of labour by moulding cockpit linings, textures and colours directly into the composite panels while maintaining the look and feel of the actual cockpit.
In addition to minimising the use of real aircraft parts and equipment, engineers also reduced part counts and slashed interface costs by a factor of two by reducing cabling and standardising interfaces and connectors.
Build and assembly times were greatly accelerated in part by moving to a product process where modules are manufactured, assembled, tested independently and then shipped to a consolidation centre in Montreal, with no "in-house" acceptance required. Installation time on-site has been reduced to one week against two or three weeks for the 7000.
Flagship Not In Danger
CAE says its flagship 7000 Series is in no danger of being phased out. "We will sell 5000 Series simulators to customers who might have otherwise bought the 7000 Series," says Parent, "but the 5000 was developed as a result of customer consultation. They sought a product that provided the highest level of fidelity using commercial-off-the-shelf technologies while avoiding the cost of using actual aircraft parts and a custom, tail-specific aircraft model."
CAE says airlines using a Series 5000 FFS for all training needs may in some cases require pilots to go through "difference training" to account for any differences between the Series 5000 and the actual aircraft, which the Series 7000 would replicate. Parent says that the market is "maturing" and there are segments now that require new full-flight simulator solutions, including the emergence of ab initio training for multi-crew pilot licences. Parent says: "We've effectively broadened our product portfolio so we're better able to address the requirements of the entire market, and do so cost effectively."
Source: Flight International
