Simulators Move Forward

COUNTERINTUITIVE IS ONE WAY TO describe Rockwell Collins' decision to jump into the Level D full flight simulation market at this precarious point in time. But that's what the avionics heavyweight is doing, betting that a recessionary industry will afford it an opportunity, a chance to play catch-up in an arena dominated by CAE, Thales and Mechtronix.

Worldwide Level D simulator sales "are about 50% of what they were last year," says Mechtronix President Xavier-Henri Herve. "In our industry, we're living a 50% recession."

"You never wish for a downturn," says Rockwell Collins Services Executive VP Kent Statler. But he sees the slide as a strategic chance to seed the company's new Edge full flight simulators. So far, there are two customers. By 2012-13 he envisions an industry turnaround and hopes his company will be positioned "fairly well" to reap its share of Level D sales. In some ways, he believes that insinuating yourself into a soft market is easier than breaking into a robust one.

Certainly no one argues that simulation sales are ruddy-cheeked right now. But below the pallor there remains a palpable (if less than precisely predictable) market. "It's difficult to pin it down exactly, but we're looking for the industry to be back up to [selling] close to 20 simulators per year, maybe a few more," by 2012-13, says Mark Gasson, GM of Thales' civil aircraft simulation business. "We're not trying to be too optimistic too early." Others leave open the possibility of a rebound to the 50-60 per year range.

"Normally, when you see 30 or 40 [narrowbody] airplanes there is a requirement for a sim," says CAE Group President-Civil Simulation Products, Training and Services Jeff Roberts. "For a widebody it's probably . . . 20 to 30" aircraft for one simulator. "Averages are always kind of dangerous things because the market is dynamic, the world is dynamic."

Airbus and Boeing delivered some 979 flying machines last year. Boeing projects that between 2009 and 2028 the world's carriers will take delivery of 19,460 single-aisle aircraft, 6,700 twin-aisles and 740 large airplanes. Over the same 20-year span, Airbus envisions approximately 17,000 new single-aisle, 5,802 twin-aisle and 1,318 very large aircraft. This is ample opportunity to stimulate simulator sales, especially considering Boeing's projection that the industry will need to train some 18,000 pilots annually between now and 2028. The issue is what sort of simulators will be built?

Hydro to Electro

Already underway is a shift from hydraulic actuation to electric. FAA's Dan Jenkins is all for it. "Electric motion bases certainly eliminate the need for all the hydraulic infrastructure," he says. Assigned to the Training Center Branch of the Air Transportation Division, Jenkins is manager of air carrier and Part 142 training for the agency. The problem with hydraulics, he contends, is all but inherent in the motors and high-pressure lines that enable them. "They've leaked, and create a tremendous amount of noise. Electric motion bases are . . . quieter, smoother and provide [the] fidelity to meet new regulatory requirements."

"Hydraulics have maintainability problems," agrees Statler. That's why Rockwell Collins uses electric actuation in its Edge simulator. "There's a 30% to 40% [lifecycle] savings based on electric vs. hydraulics," he contends.

With some simulators running 20-plus hr. per day, seven days a week, maintenance takes on a whole new meaning. Electrically actuated Level D sims are "much easier to maintain," says Jenkins. They're predicated on more of "a remove and replace" philosophy than hydraulic devices. "You had to pull all sorts of equipment apart just to change one of the hydraulic struts," he says. "Now you simply turn the system off, support it with a jack, replace and you're ready to go."

Not all OEMs are entirely sold on the concept. Thales' new RealitySeven simulator is "hydraulic only in the jacks," says Gasson. "We don't see us moving into a totally electronic device at this time," adds Thales Training & Simulation Communications Director Mark Rouson.

Getting Modular

Where many in the simulator community are moving is toward modularity and increasingly open architecture. Rockwell Collins' Edge FSS is an example. Statler maintains, "The users of this equipment have been hampered for a long time by closed systems, proprietary systems . . . Obsolescence has cost them a tremendous amount of money." If one element, say visual fidelity, is upgraded, in some instances "the whole architecture had to be modified for that." In an open architecture environment, "as the technology continues to change, the architecture can adapt," he says. The core of the system doesn't have to be reworked.

Savings can be notable. Statler says it can cost "anywhere from 25% to 50% of the original purchase price" to accomplish the mod in a closed system compared to "10% to 15% of the original tab in an open architecture setup."

Thales' RealitySeven series gets to the core of things by promoting "commonality," says Gasson. "A big part is flexibility. The core simulator is generic across aircraft types, whereas traditionally we've had different technologies in different devices. What we've achieved . . . is [a] generic product, with an aircraft module which plugs in for specific aircraft types. You can have different cockpits on the same simulator--pull one cockpit out, put another cockpit in."

The flexibility gained can be significant. A carrier operating a smallish mixed fleet of, say, five 777s and five A330s "may not be able to justify two full flight [simulators]," Gasson says. If they want to train at their own facility they could alternate a 777 cockpit with an A330 every six months or so. "The savings is millions [compared to] two sets of hardware," he claims. And when the cockpit isn't sitting atop a Level D FSS, "we make it into another level trainer, a flight training device. It's not just lying there doing nothing."

Vendors and regulators alike consider fidelity the sine qua non of simulation. You can never have too much of it--aural, motional (depending on the training requirement) or visual. In the latter arena especially, it's now Blu-ray versus blah. Improvements are "of that magnitude," says Jenkins. "Thanks to the gaming industry, the visual systems of today are at a [terrific] level of realism," says Herve.

What does the increased realism bring? "It depends on the maneuver you're conducting," says Jenkins. Less than full fidelity visual simulation is fine if you're flying an ILS approach down to minima where the visibility is 500 ft. and the ceiling indefinite. The gauzy goo in which pilots are enveloped virtually means "I only need to see 500 feet of runway at any particular moment." Throw in an "abnormal situation," an engine-out perhaps, and you want to find an airport amenable to a visual approach. In an instant, the capability of a simulator to show the surrounding terrain becomes infinitely more important. Then, he says, "each [incremental] increase in visual capability could play a very significant role."

Real Life Scenarios

Look for operational-based scenarios to become more prevalent, says Roberts. He sees carriers and training companies increasingly employing "actual data-driven scenarios based on trend analysis, based on specific data that is collected around aircraft operations." Case in point: Early rotation. He says a number of CAE's customers want hard data that will allow the simulator manufacturer "to create training scenarios that will allow us to rotate at the appropriate time." Carriers also want OEMs to plug in new airports, especially those that harbor unconventional approaches.

If the core technologies of simulators themselves are increasingly universal, the scenarios those technologies drive are far more specialized, more customized, than ever, to the extent that ATC chatter is supplanting the less-than-realistic aural inputs from sim instructors.

Not supplanted, not yet anyway, is the full motion requirement for things such as recurrent training. Herve says, "There are a lot of people who say that you need a Level D [full motion] simulator for 3,000-hour pilots. It's exactly the opposite. The 3,000-hour pilot needs less cueing from that perspective than the 200-hour pilot." He suggests that motion cueing devices, where movement is conveyed via visual cues rather than the seat of one's pants, might be used successfully for some recurrent training. In the company's FFT X, "we integrate the visual systems and the same cockpit fidelity . . . you have in a full-flight sim" at about half the cost. "The issue today is picking the right tools to do the right job."

Right now, FAR Part 60 doesn't permit motion cueing to substitute for full motion in the recurrent regime, says Jenkins. But that doesn't mean regulators and aircraft manufacturers aren't looking at the idea. He says FAA is meeting with EASA, ICAO, Boeing, Airbus and the Royal Aeronautical Society, among others: "We're trying to pull those together and come up with some good data points to support decisions." He hopes for findings by this fall. But it is a touchy subject among regulators, training organizations, simulator-makers and pilots.

If Rockwell Collins' Level D debut, which was funded internally, is indicative of the faith simulator fabricators have in the future, so too are these developments: Thales has invested £100 million in a new simulator factory in Crawley and Gasson hopes this will squelch rumors his firm is pulling out of the business. Meanwhile, CAE says it will invest up to C$714 million in "Project Falcon," an R&D effort intended "to expand CAE's current modeling and simulation technologies," according to a company statement.

As manufacturers invest in the future, they're also devising ways for customers to get their hands on their products right now. CAE, which Roberts claims is the world's market leader for air transport full flight simulators with a 65% share of the pie, is working with the Solidarity Fund QFL and Societe Generale de Financement du Quebec to create a limited partnership that will permit qualified customers to lease simulators manufactured in the Canadian province. The partners have invested C$3.3 million and have committed to fund the pact with up to another C$66 million in debt.

The president of arch competitor Mechtronix says this sort of arrangement "is a mandatory part of our business. It's been at the heart of our model. I don't think you can live in this business without very strong relationships with the financial industry, and having your own abilities to [coordinate] those things."

There's much to coordinate these days: Aircraft deliveries with simulator production, financing with fiscal constraints and, most importantly, machines with missions. Herve asserts that the seminal issue still remains "how you combine economic and operational efficiency [with] an increased level of training." Because at the end of the day, the one buying the ticket is the one who's going to pay.