KAREN WALKER / FRANKFURT
Asian airline buys full-flight simulator while North American client orders upgrades
Evans & Sutherland (E&S) has signed contracts for six more of its new EP-1000CT visual systems, one for a new full-flight simulator (FFS) and five for upgrades on installed machines.
The US manufacturer says it will soon be able to reveal the latest EP-1000CT customers, but the deals have been completed. The new FFS sale is to an Asian airline and the upgrades are for a North American customer.
Lufthansa, which was launch customer for the PC-based EP-1000CT, is the first airline to have the system certificated. The EP-1000CT now equips a Thales Boeing 767 FFS and a CAE Airbus A340 FFS installed at Lufthansa Flight Training's facility in Frankfurt as well as a CAE Boeing 737-300 FFS at its Berlin centre. All have Joint Aviation Authorities Level D certification.
Other announced customers for EP-1000CT include Emirates, KLM and Singapore Airlines.
Competition between the two main providers of the new breed of PC-based, ultra-realistic visual systems - E&S and CAE with its Tropos system - has become fierce this year. E&S commercial simulation vice-president and general manager Richard Flitton describes the situation as "a bloodbath" as each company tries to maintain market share.
E&S is confident, however, that it will stay ahead of the game, estimating that the EP-1000CT will win "50-60%" of commercial visual sales in 2003, of which about 60% will be for upgrades.
The high level of fidelity offered by the EP-1000CT, with detailed airport scenes, realistic portrayal of snow and poor weather, and "whole earth" database technology that continues to provide accurate terrain scenes throughout a flight cycle rather than just around airports, has attracted flight training providers, such as Lufthansa, that specialise in offering high standards of training to airlines all over the world.
Lufthansa Flight Training general manager Dieter Hass says: "Finally, we have got what we have been looking for. I believe this is a completely different world." He says the visual system's almost photographic quality allows more airport familiarisation and runway incursion training to be done in the simulator, saving costs as well as raising the standard of training.
Source: Flight International
