Eurocopter has commenced training operations with its Dauphin AS365 N3/N3+ full flight simulator (FFS) at Singapore's Seletar Aerospace Park, and has received bookings from five customers.

"Mainly targeted at Dauphin pilots in Asia Pacific and the Middle East, the FFS is also open to other regions such as North and South America," says Eurocopter in a statement. "The first bookings have been received from five customers, with a total of 38 pilots coming from Australia, Bangladesh, India, Korea and the United Arab Emirates."

The company expects to train 100 pilots this year, and in four years hopes to be conducting 3,000 FFS training hours annually.

The simulator has FFS level B and FTD level 3 dual certification from the French Civil Aviation Authority in accordance with the European JAR/EASA criteria.

"This dual certification concept has been selected by Eurocopter as the optimal balance between high-quality training and a reasonable price per flight hour," says the company.

"The FFS will allow operators to perform initial and recurrent type training as well as specific training covering emergency procedures, instrument flight rules [IFRs], offshore and search and rescue [SAR] operations, night flights [night-vision goggles], flights over mountainous regions and low-altitude navigation," it adds.

Source: Flight International