US Army Gets First UH-72A FTD From CAE

CAE announced at the I/ITSEC show that the United States Army has accepted for training the first UH-72A flight training device (FTD) to be located at the U.S. Army's Aviation Center of Excellence (USAACE) at Ft. Rucker, Alabama.

Under subcontract to Airbus Defense & Space, CAE designed and manufactured the UH-72A FTD, which is a Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) Level 6-capable FTD that features an aircraft-specific cockpit with the fidelity and performance of a
full-flight simulator without the motion. This is the first UH-72A Lakota flight simulator to be located at Ft. Rucker, which is the home of U.S. Army aviation.

"This high-quality flight training device was delivered and operational at lightning speed," said Dale Alldredge, UH-72A
Acquisition Management Analyst, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Capability Management - Lift. "CAE has delivered a training device that will serve new helicopter flight students and instructor pilots much more than we originally anticipated."

The CAE-built UH-72A FTD features a motion/vibration seat and a wide 200-degree by 70-degree field-of-view display system driven by the next-generation CAE Medallion-6000 image generator to immerse pilots in a high-fidelity synthetic training environment. The UH-72A FTD for the U.S. Army has also been fielded with the CAE-developed Common
Database (CDB), enhancing the Army's ability to leverage existing U.S. Government-owned databases to support their helicopter training requirements.

"We are honored to support the Army's UH-72A Lakota flight training that will take place at Ft. Rucker, and particularly pleased we were able to deliver early on an aggressive delivery schedule," said Ray Duquette, President and General Manager, CAE USA. "From contract award to acceptance into service, we delivered this simulator in less than six months and almost three months ahead of schedule. This will help the Army meet a critical training need, and allow the Army to
efficiently and cost-effectively begin balancing live and synthetic training for its new UH-72A primary helicopter trainer."

CAE is currently building a second UH-72A FTD for the U.S. Army, which will be delivered to Ft. Rucker, Alabama during the summer of 2015.