CAE Electronics has formed an alliance with Sogitec Industries to market and develop visual systems, to compete more effectively against industry leader Evans & Sutherland (E&S).
The agreement unites CAE's MaxVue mid-range visual system and Sogitec's high-performance Apogee-3, which will be marketed to military customers as the MaxVue Medallion. The firms will make their database development tools compatible with both image generators, then jointly develop next-generation visual systems.
Sogitec, a Dassault subsidiary, has traditionally delivered visual systems for simulators representing combat aircraft built by its parent company. The CAE alliance will link it to a broader customer base, the MaxVue having been sold widely to civil and military users.
The French company delivered its first Apogee-3 in April to the French flight-test centre for use with Dassault Rafale and Eurocopter Tiger research simulators. Sogitec and CAE have teamed to bid for the Franco-German Tiger training systems contract, to be awarded next year.
Apogee-3 customers include the United Arab Emirates, for two Dassault Mirage 2000-9 full mission simulators and four unit level trainers to be built by Sogitec; and the French navy, for a Northrop Grumman E-2C Hawkeye flight simulator to be built by Reflectone, and two Rafale trainers to be produced jointly by Sogitec and Thomson Training &Simulation.
E&S acknowledges that the CAE/Sogitec tie-up "-will change the market". The Apogee-3 is a competitor for the US company's Harmony high-end visual system, deliveries of which are under way after development delays. The MaxVue, meanwhile, is the major competitor to E&S' ESIG-series visual systems.
At I/ITSEC, E&S launched the increased-performance ESIG-5500 to provide customers with an upgrade path which allows them to use existing ESIG databases. Early customers include Lufthansa, which has a large number of ESIG systems in use. E&S expects the ESIG-5500 to cover the transition period as customers switch to the more capable Harmony.
Also at I/ITSEC, the company introduced its first PC-based image generator, the Ensemble, aimed at low-cost simulators. It uses the Real Image graphics chip developed by E&S for desktop visualisation workstations.
Source: Flight International
