Alenia Aeronautica, TURIN, Italy: During a ceremony held today in Turin, Alenia Aeronautica, a Finmeccanica company, has delivered to the Italian Air Force a Eurofighter Typhoon simulator, E-ACPT3 (Enhanced Aircrew Cockpit Procedure Trainer 3), first of two systems for Grosseto’s and Gioia del Colle’s air force bases.
The simulator, entirely made at Alenia Aeronautica’s Simulation Centre of Turin, will be delivered to Grosseto’s base, assembled and made operational by the end of the year.
The E-ACPT simulators are advanced training devices designed as “ready-for-use” systems; already made the ACPT1 prototype and the ACPT2 procedure trainer, the latter having been delivered to Grosseto’s base in October 2006. These simulators are conceived to train pilots for the Typhoon procedures and at the same time to facilitate training for the most complex and realistic operational tactics, thanks to the possibility of being linked with each other and with simulators of other types of aircraft.
The new simulator’s characteristics have been demonstrated during a practice of “spread” simulation, carried out by military pilots of the bases of Grosseto, Gioia del Colle and Pisa, in which the E-ACPT3 and other two linked Alenia Aeronautica’s simulators – another one of a Eurofighter and one of a C-27J Spartan – have successfully completed an operational mission in a virtual setting, also with the presence of other systems such as Alenia Aeronautica’s unmanned aircraft Sky-X and Sky-Y.
The presence of these simulators at ItAF’s operational bases responds to new training concept and to specific requirements of the Air Force and creates new forms of collaboration with industry, where Alenia Aeronautica not only has the role of supplier but also of support partner of the operational bases’ divisions.
Specifically, in the last four years, Alenia Aeronautica has completed a total of 2500 simulation flight hours on its own Eurofighter’s training systems with ItAF pilots, while currently undergoing is the pilots’ training of several air forces on the C-27J’s simulator in service at Alenia Aeronautica’s Simulation Centre.
The Air Force’s “virtual” training procedure envisages, in addition to Alenia’s systems ACPT/E-ACPT – with excellent performances and a low life-cycle cost, aimed at the completion of the aircrew training system for the Typhoon pilots – also the adoption of more complex systems such as the sophisticated simulators ASTA (Aircrew Synthetic Training Aids), developed by Alenia Aeronautica and Galileo Avionica together with other companies of the four Eurofighter consortium nations.
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