Blackhawk simulator - journey's end in sight

The Army's Blackhawk flight simulator is expected to be one of the most advanced helicopter simulators in the world when it is commissioned later this year.
The Army's Blackhawk flight simulator should be fully operational around the end of this year, according to its manufacturer, CAE. The simulator is already installed in its purpose-built facility at the Army Aviation centre at Oakey, Qld, and final integration and testing were scheduled to begin this month, according to CAE's marketing manager, Chris Nesbitt-Hawes.

He told ADM that a four-month joint Reliability, Availability and Maintainability (RAM) trial by the Army and CAE would likely start in September, leading to final acceptance around the end of this year.

That will be a welcome milestone for both parties: this has been a technically challenging project which has seen its fair share of delays. This is the first full-flight simulator the Army has ever acquired and it has avoided half-measures. CAE describes it as the most advanced helicopter flight simulator in the world - it is one of the first ever built to match the US Federal Aviation Administration's Level D certification and will be the world's first actually certified to Australia's equivalent standard, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) Level 5.

To achieve this level of fidelity, a flight test program was carried out by Adelaide-based Australian Flight Test Services (AFTS) to gather a quantity of flight data greater than available anywhere else in the world.

In airline use a Level 5 simulator allows almost all of the pilot conversion for a particular aircraft type to be conducted in the simulator. At Oakey, this will allow the Army to carry out critical training and 'check-out' functions such as instrument ratings, emergency drills and currency flying in the simulator alone, so reducing the training burden on the Blackhawk fleet and freeing aircraft for operational tasks. More importantly, crews will be able to practice in-flight systems failures which would endanger the aircraft and its occupants if practised or experienced in the aircraft.

The biggest technical hurdle has been the development of a wide-field-of-view visual system able to integrate the normal cross-cockpit views from both pilots' seats with a realistic chin window view, all using a massive, glass mirror.

Designed to meet the Army's requirements for absolute fidelity, the simulator's visual system, based on CAE's own MAXVUE visual display system, has a 60o vertical field of view (FOV) which extends over the full 220o horizontal FOV . Building a glass mirror of this size and the necessary precision, and ensuring its alignment survives the shocks transmitted by the simulator's six-axis motion base, has been a demanding assignment. The original design had three segments, but this evolved into a five-segment mirror, manufactured by Pilkington Aerospace in the US.

The MAXVUE seven-channel visual system devotes two channels to driving the vital chin window displays or the simulated NVG system when in use. When used to teach Night Vision Goggle (NVG) operations the simulator also breaks new ground: miniature cathode-ray tubes (CRTs) have been built into standard NVGs and helmet trackers are used to follow the pilot's head movements. The CRTs simulate the necessary NVG's-eye view of the cockpit and exterior, without requiring changes to the cockpit lighting and the creation of NVG-specific visual databases; this approach means the simulator can be used by a mixed crew with and without NVGs, and it also allows realistic simulation of NVG faults.

The simulator will see up to 2,300 hours' usage a year, divided roughly 50:50 between initial conversion training for pilots new to the Blackhawk, and continuation and operational training by Army's 5 Aviation Regiment. Simulators are designed to reduce the cost of training and allow critical emergency drills to be learned and practised in safety. But this simulator will also allow very detailed tactical training, including night formation flying as either a lead aircraft or part of a multi-ship element, nap of the earth flying at altitudes below 50ft (16m), deck landings on a range of RAN ships and oil and gas platforms, and mission rehearsal and planning.

Australian engineers from CAE's Sydney facility have developed much of the simulator software and especially visual databases of 15 civil airfields and airports down the eastern seaboard. The simulator also boasts a 10,000 square nautical mile generic terrain database, and a more detailed 200 square mile tactical training area to allow nap-of-the-earth (NOE) flight and operations into small clearings and confined areas.

A further 25 Australian engineers have worked on the simulator itself at CAE's head office in Montreal, developing software for the simulator's ancillary systems and flight instruments, user interfaces and tactical scenarios. They also played critical roles in integration and testing and in acceptance testing before the simulator left the factory. Their expertise will underpin CAE's five-year in-service support contract for this simulator which comes into effect once the device is accepted into service, and, under the latest restructure within the company's Military Simulation and Training Group, will also be used to develop other nations' simulators as part of global engineering teams.

The company acknowledges that Australia will generate fewer military flight simulator opportunities in the future. The three most prominent are for the RAAF's Boeing 737-based Wedgetail AEW&C and VIP aircraft; for the Army's Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter in project Air 87; and to upgrade or replace the RAAF's Hornet aircrew training system (HACTS) at RAAF Base Williamtown. These may be followed by one for the new Tanker Aircraft, depending on the RAAF's approach to that requirement.

CAE is teamed with Agusta and Tenix to support the A129 Scorpion bid for Air 87, for which tenders were submitted on April 30. The flight simulator sought in Air 87 will be acquired through the prime as part of the prime contract.

The company plans also to respond to the HACTS RFT later this year. CAE expects to offer an all-new simulator to replace the existing Hornet cockpit simulator, similar to the forthcoming Canadian requirement, but the exact response will depend on the requirements set out in the RFT itself. The company built the Canadian Air Force's existing CF-18 Hornet simulator and recently supplied a MiG-29 flight simulator to the Royal Malaysian Air Force, so has current single-seat fighter simulation experience.

It isn't clear how the RAAF will implement its simulator training for the B737s; this kind of thing lends itself to PFI, and CAE says that the differences between the Wedgetail and VIP aircraft cockpits are slight enough that a common simulator could be used for both, with interchangeable switch and instrument panels to allow rapid reconfiguration. In any case, flight simulators for airliners such as the B-737-700/800 are core business for CAE so the company would like to play a major role in meeting this training requirement.

But CAE believes its longer-term business growth in this country could come from the operation of simulator complexes in Australia. The company operates the UK Royal Air Force's Medium Support Helicopter Aircrew Training Facility at RAF Benson, near Oxford, on a PFI basis and believes the potential exists to offer a similar service in Australia. Obvious candidates, according to Chris Nesbitt-Hawes would be 'clusters' of simulators such as the RAN's helicopter simulator facility at Nowra, which is host to the existing Seahawk and Sea King simulators and soon also to the Super Seasprite simulator; and RAAF Base Williamtown which hosts (or will host) cockpit and mission simulators and other part-task trainers for the RAAF's Hornets, Hawks and Wedgetail AEW&C aircraft.

Even more attractive, from CAE's point of view, is the RAAF's airlift simulator facility at RAAF Base Richmond, near Sydney. Here, the company has installed CASA Level 5 flight simulators for the RAAF's Boeing 707s and C-130J Hercules and, around early July, expects to install its Level 5 simulator for the C-130H. This was scheduled to undergo final factory testing in Montreal at the end of this month before being shipped to Australia. Integration and commissioning of this last device should be relatively quick as the majority of integration work has been carried out at the factory prior to final delivery.

The Boeing 707 simulator was commissioned in January last year and is now earning its keep. The C-130J simulator was completed in late-1999, but owing to delays in finalising the Operational Flight Program (OFP) for the aircraft themselves, the simulator has only been used properly since the early part of this year. Final acceptance in a software configuration matching that of the C-130J as currently operated by the RAAF is scheduled for next month; once the final OFP software drop is installed in the aircraft later this year the simulator will be similarly upgraded.

Having supplied the simulators (though not the building itself, which was built by the RAAF), CAE now has a three-year support contract, with two successive three year renewal options. The company has offered the RAAF a "sale and lease back" proposal to effect a PFI arrangement, according to Nesbitt-Hawes, but this was rejected because the anticipated savings, once the RAAF had already paid for the simulators, no longer justified this approach. If PFI had been considered from the outset it would have been a much more attractive option. But CAE has still offered a "modified PFI" proposal by which it will market excess simulator capacity to civil and military operators for these three aircraft within the region.

While the market for Boeing 707 simulator time is probably quite small, the C-130J has a growing customer base within the region while the C-130H is the most numerous version of this venerable airlifter and CAE believes access to a modern, CASA Level 5 simulator could be very attractive to a number of regional operators.

Simulation and training facilities lend themselves to PFI-type arrangements, so long as an appropriate business model can be implemented for third-party operators of the simulators or training aids in question. This will always be a challenge for PFI contractors in Australia, believes Nesbitt-Hawes - along with ensuring third-party clients get no exposure to sensitive ADF capabilities (such as sensors and EW equipment) represented in the simulator concerned, PFI contractors need to find clients who could make cost-effective use of a specific simulator type, even if it does differ in some minor respects from their own aircraft.

But modern glass cockpit technology means that flight simulators can lend themselves to rapid re-configuration using only software changes to suit different customers and different aircraft configurations. This means that simulator manufacturers and service providers such as CAE have more flexibility in building a business case that satisfies both their primary customer and any third-party users.

By Gregor Ferguson, Adelaide