SimuFlite Mirrors Industry Growth

With more business aircraft than ever before there's more need for pilot education, and GE's SimuFlite Training International is responding with a spate of new simulator orders and installations, including establishment of the company's first business aircraft training center in the U.S. Northeast, and a foray into helicopter pilot instruction.

Three sites are being considered to augment existing SimuFlite centers in Texas and Georgia. The new Northeast facility will include half a dozen Level D flight simulators as well as multimedia classrooms and an aviation library. It will handle technician as well as pilot training.

One of the six sims at the new center will be for the Sikorsky S-76 helicopter, marking a first for SimuFlite in rotary-wing aircraft. "Our goal is to be the training company of choice for mixed fleet operators, and the addition of Sikorsky S-76 training will help us meet that goal," said SimuFlite president Jeff Roberts. The Level D simulator for the S-76 will be build by Montreal's CAE.

CAE will also make SimuFlite's new Level D unit for the Hawker 800 and 800-XP. Elsewhere in fixed-wing aircraft, Virginia's NLX Corp will produce simulators to support new Simuflite training programs for the Beechjet 400A, King Air 350 and CitationJet. Thomson-CSF's simulator division in Crawley, UK will produce SimuFlite training hardware for Falcon 900 and Falcon 200 aircraft.

SimuFlite reports that it's proceeding with upgrades of the visual displays across its simulator "fleet," using CAE Marvue Plus daylight systems and BARCO/EIS monitor replacement projectors.

The 450-employee company has also added new client features to its simuflite.com website, including discounts on various products and services from its parent, GE.