Following on from the launch of its H145 VR simulator at the Farnborough Air Show a month ago, virtual Reality simulation specialistsLoft Dynamics have announced that Kawasaki Heavy Industries who build the H145 under licence from Airbus will be the launch customer for Asia Pacific for its H145 Simulator. Kawasaki’s involvement in the H145/BK117 dates back decades and besides building the aircraft the company also provides customer support across the Asia Pacific region including the provision of type specific flight training on the H145.
“Kawasaki has long been a central industrial and training force in the H145 program in Asia,” said Sebastien Borel, CEO of Loft Dynamics. “Its decision to deploy our H145 Multi-Pilot VR Simulator marks an important step in bringing aircraft-specific, multi-crew VR training to Asia-Pacific. It also reflects a much larger shift: VR is changing how pilots and crews build proficiency, and it is on its way to becoming a standard part of aviation training worldwide.”
The simulator will be installed at the Kawasaki Training Center in Gifu, one of the leading H145/BK117 training centers in the world. Kawasaki will use it to support initial type ratings, instrument training, multi-crew cooperation, recurrent training and checking for operators in emergency medical services, law enforcement, disaster response and other mission-critical sectors.
“As an Airbus Helicopters-approved training center, our responsibility is to provide operators with the highest standard of H145 training available,” said Hitoshi Kawaguchi, head of the BK117/H145 Program at Kawasaki. “Loft Dynamics’ H145 Multi-Pilot VR Simulator significantly expands our ability to do just that. By combining immersive multi-crew training with OEM-provided aircraft data, we can give pilots more opportunities to build proficiency, prepare for complex missions and train using the same procedures they use in the aircraft. Adding this capability to our training center advances our long-term plans for advanced H145/BK117 training and allows us to serve more operators across Japan and the wider Asia-Pacific region.”
Image: Loft Dynamics
