, The helicopter manufacturer Eurocopter has selected Indra after an open competition process to develop two Flight Training Devices (FTDs) for the EC-135 helicopter, a versatile light twin-engine helicopter operating in various missions like Emergency Medical Services, Police Role (surveillance, traffic control), Offshore, VIP/Corporate Transport, and Military Training.
The devices will be installed in the American Eurocopter training center in Texas (USA) and in the Eurocopter Deutchland training center in Donauwoerth (Germany). The systems will be operative by mid year and will be respectively certified as FTD Level 6 FAA and FTD Level 3 JAR, the highest certification level recognized by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and by the European Joint Aviation Authority (JAA) for Flight Training Devices.
The device includes a six degrees of freedom motion platform and provides a high fidelity simulation of the EC-135 behaviour, flight conditions and systems. The core simulation modules for the flight characteristics, autopilot, and glass cockpit simulation are provided by Eurocopter thus guaranteeing highest representativeness of the EC135 flight simulation.
The FTD can be used by the helicopter pilots to train all the required flight situations, including very demanding take off and landing scenarios and emergency conditions. Further, it allows for IFR, NVG, Crew Management, and other special mission training.
Therefore, the training on the FTD will allow the pilots to refine and improve their flight skills, increasing the safety levels and the training quality. Furthermore, training costs are drastically reduced, minimizing the requirement of flying the real helicopter for training tasks, and therefore allowing a higher availability of them for the operational missions.
After the contracts awards obtained in Turkey and US last year, this new contract confirms the leadership of Indra in the helicopter simulation market, adding to its customer list one of the main helicopter manufacturers, Eurocopter, and obtaining a reference in a platform with a huge commercial success and more than 500 units delivered around the world.
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