Intelligence

Fast 5

William Garvey

Jeff Roberts Group President, Civil Products and Training & Services, CAE, Montrtreal Canada

After graduating from the University of Colorado, Roberts entered the piloting profession the traditional way — a CFI and then a freight pilot before moving into corporate turbines and finally into airline flying. In the doing he accumulated 6,000 flight hours and an ATP. He moved into the training industry full time and was serving as CEO of SimuFlite when it was acquired by CAE in 2002. He has led CAE’s civilian training and services group for the past seven years and was appointed to his current position this past April. He is a director of GAMA and former trustee of the U.S. Aerobatic Foundation.

1CAE entered business aviation in a big way with its acquisition of SimuFlite, your alma mater. Is that name now being retired in favor of CAE?

Roberts: Not in the foreseeable future. SimuFlite’s name is well known and respected within business aviation. It resonates with some of our customers. Meanwhile CAE is a global brand. There’s no burning need to do away with either. While the sign on our Morristown facility is CAE, the courseware says SimuFlite/CAE and customers think of it that way.

2How goes the Morristown venture? At its grand opening you said that training center needed to be doubled in size. Is that still true?

Roberts: No, we’ve had to triple its size. In fact we’re just finishing the 15th simulator bay there, and had to expand the classrooms and support facilities as well. It’s been well received in the marketplace. The same thing with our Burgess Hill center in England. It began with four bays, and we’ve had to expand it to 15 bays as well.

3Of CAE’s 27 centers, four — Dallas, Morristown, Burgess Hill and Dubai — concentrate on business aviation training. Will that number increase and, if so, where?

Roberts: We created the Dubai center in direct response to customer demand. We’re going to support the market and go where the airplanes end up. Since 9/11 the administrative process for non-citizens to train in the United States has become more onerous and taxing for our customers and many are looking for a more localized solution. We are quite comfortable in the global environment.

4With that kind of growth, is it difficult to find enough good instructors?

Roberts: Everyone is in pursuit of the best. We have attracted talented instructors whom we treat with respect and compensate well, though I’m sure if you asked them, they’d say not well enough. The challenge for JAA/EASA-approved training organizations located outside of Europe in attracting instructors will be their licenses. The proposed EASA rules concerning instructors and examiners will require them to hold JAA/EASA licenses. For more than a decade, training organizations have provided training to tens of thousands of JAA pilots using instructors and examiners who hold FAA and Canadian pilot certificates. These instructors receive special training and qualification from the European authorities. Unless EASA and the FAA can reach a state of mutual recognition of instructors’ licenses through a bilateral agreement, it will be challenging for training organizations outside of Europe to continue to provide this training. For FAA-licensed instructors to earn the JAA/EASA licenses required by the proposed rules, the program is lengthy, expensive and may seriously reduce the number of simulators available for European pilots. This makes no sense and poses a real threat to training internationally. We’re working to resolve that.

5The helicopter EMS industry’s safety record is a matter of concern. What can you do to help improve it?

Roberts: We take this very seriously and expect to grow and expand in this area, but not in a traditional way — building a simulator center and reviewing aircraft systems probably wouldn’t address the problem effectively. We’re trying to determine what’s driving the problem, when and where it occurs, and what training is needed. The solution will probably be more mission oriented, more accessible in a distributed manner and cost effective.