Boeing-owned Alteon is gearing up to provide training for 787 customers by preparing pilot and maintenance suites at its Seattle and Miami bases.
The training organisation’s president Sherry Carbary confirms there is already a 787 full-flight simulator at Seattle, with software being continuously updated as the aircraft goes through its ground test programme.
Carbary says that its Miami centre will have a full 787 training suite – including an FFS – by March 2010. Alteon plans to have two 787 training suites at Seattle, one at Miami, and in due course suites at Minneapolis/St Paul, London, Shanghai, Singapore and Tokyo.
As part of the Boeing package for 787 buyers, Alteon will train five crews per aeroplane, says Carbary, whereas the traditional package for a customer buying a new type has been to train eight of the airline’s own training pilots and then let the carrier’s own training organisation take over the type rating of its crews.
Part of the training suite used to prepare pilots for the FFS at a relatively low cost is a flat-panel fixed-base simulator developed jointly by Thales and Boeing. It can be used to train pilots or maintenance personnel because it has the full suite of displays and systems information that the aircraft has, including Class 3 electronic flight bag displays.
As well as the systems being fully interactive via its touchscreen interfaces, it has mechanical controls, allowing it to be “flown” using a traditional Boeing control yoke, rudder pedals, power levers, flap and spoiler levers.
Thales’s market director civil simulation Mark Dransfield says more than 80% of the software is the same as in the aeroplane itself and the full flight simulator, with software updates being only about three days behind the latest developments for the real aircraft.
Source: flightglobal.com's sister premium news site Air Transport Intelligence news
Source: Flight International
