Airbus Helicopters Upgrades Dauphin Rotorcraft Flight Simulator For SAR Operations

Airbus Helicopters has upgraded the AS365 Dauphin rotorcraft full-flight simulator to provide training in both day and night search and rescue (SAR) operations.

The upgrade was made by Airbus Helicopters Southeast Asia at its Seletar Aerospace Park facility, by adding a CMA9000 flight management system into the AS365 motion-based flight simulator. It has updated its the interface between these two avionics units, APM 2010 4-axis autopilot with the SAR mode to enhance the SAR operations training.

This will enable flight crews to experience the operational environment during SAR missions while using all capabilities of the CMA9000 system and APM 2010 autopilot – including flying with precision navigation guidance, performing search patterns and hovering, as well as scenarios for deploying rescue dinghies, flares and smoke markers.

The CMA9000 is a flight management system used on helicopters operated by many emergency services providers, law enforcement organizations and government agencies.

The APM 2010 is a digital dual-duplex autopilot that reduces pilot workload for mission effectiveness and situational awareness – while providing automatic hover stability with very high precision.

“Operators who fly Dauphin family rotorcraft, in particular the AS365 N3/N3+ civil version and the Panther AS565 MBe military variant, will benefit from this training to handle SAR, which is one of the most challenging missions,” said Derek Sharples, the Managing Director of Airbus Helicopters Southeast Asia.

Sharples added that pilots qualified on other aircraft that are equipped with the same systems also could utilize the simulator as a training device for system knowledge and familiarity.