THE FIRST industry-funded simulator centre to be established under the UK Ministry of Defence's Private Finance Initiative (PFI) has opened at Royal Air Force Valley in Wales.
The Hawk Synthetic Training Facility has been built by British Aerospace subsidiary Reflectone UK. The centre opened for training equipped with a Reflectone-built cockpit procedures trainer for the RAF's BAe Hawk T1 advanced jet trainer.
The company will build and install two full mission simulators and an instrument flight simulator for the Hawk over the next year.
The mission simulators will feature a visual system combining a Silicon Graphics-based photospecific image generator with a SEOS Displays AcuView dome display. The visual is being supplied by the UK's Equipe Electronics. The display system combines a high-resolution foreground image with a lower-resolution background and two colour target projectors. The active field of view is ±145í horizontal by -40í/+90í vertical.
The company will provide simulator training for RAFHawk pilots under a 13-year PFI contract which calls for the BAe subsidiary to construct, equip and operate the centre in return for a fee for service.
The UKMoD has awarded PFI contracts to CAE Electronics to set up the Medium Support Helicopter Aircrew Training Facility; to Thomson Training & Simulation to provide the Tornado Synthetic Training Service; and to a GKN Westland/Boeing joint venture to set up the WAH-64 Apache Attack Helicopter Training System.
Source: Flight International
