Thursday, February 28, 2019

Navy now using new simulator

New TH-57 simulator with wrap around screen.
Navy photo
NAVAL AIR STATION WHITING FIELD, Fla. - Dozens of Navy and civilian officials along with members of the media were on hand Thursday for a demonstration of the first of 10 brand new TH-57 helicopter training simulator for Naval Air Station Whiting Field. The simulators, the first new ones at the base in nearly 40 years, will be used to train some 500 Navy, Marine and Coast Guard helicopter students each year. The one shown Thursday was a stationary, Level 6 trainer with a wrap-around screen. NAS Whiting will get three of them. It will also get seven full-motion Level 7 machines, which have larger vertical and horizontal wrap around screens, providing a larger field of view. The new simulators are designed to teach students on the ground so they can make mistakes there, rather than in the unforgiving environment of actual flight. The scenarios can change at the punch of button, from an outlying field to an aircraft carrier. The simulators can mimic any time of day and give students challenging weather and air traffic situations. Also included in the upgrade will be a central control station that will provide the capability to link all 10 simulators together in a single virtual environment. The new simulators were provided by Flight Safety Systems International of Denver, Frasca International of Urbana, Ill., and Aechelon Technology of San Francisco. The old simulators have been use since the Cold War era and have been modified over time to make them more capable. But they reached their limit of adaptability and will be replaced over the next year by the new simulators. (Source: GCAC, 02/28/19) Previous