Britain, others tap CAE for simulators

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MONTREAL, Aug. 23 (UPI) -- Britain's Ministry of Defense and Airbus Military of Spain have contracted CAE of Canada for flight simulator projects.

The contracts are part of nearly $55 million in new business reported by the company this week.

"These orders are indicative of the types of opportunities we see as a result of CAE's global footprint, position on key platforms and the fundamental value of simulation-based training solutions," said Gene Colabatistto, CAE Group president, Military Products, Training and Services.

"In growth markets such as the Middle East and India, we continue to see a solid pipeline of opportunities for our product and services.

"In addition, as militaries consider the increased use of synthetic training, there will be requirements to increase the level of fidelity and capability in existing training devices, as evidenced by this visual system upgrade program for the United Kingdom."

CAE said under the award from Britain's Ministry of Defense, it will provide major visual system and other upgrades on the British navy's Lynx Mk8 full-mission simulator and the C-130J simulators of the British air force.

For the British navy's Lynx MK8 simulator at naval Air Station Yeovilton CAE will provide its Medallion-6000 visual system, replace the legacy image generator and update its visual display system.

New databases for full-mission scenarios to be used by the navy for training will also be provided.

The upgrade project is expected to be completed by March.

For the British air force, the visual systems of C-130J Hercules Synthetic Training Equipment will be replaced with the CAE Medallion-6000 image generator. CAE will also add a visual system to the air force's C-130J fixed-base flight training device as well as provide updates to the training database.

The air force upgrade project is to be completed next year.

Airbus Military's contract involves more than upgrades. As the provider of simulation and training systems for C295 aircraft, CAE will design and build a C295 full flight simulator for the Omani air force, which has ordered eight of the aircraft.

The Airbus Military planes, to be delivered in 2014, will be used by the sultanate for tactical transport and maritime patrol.

CAE said the simulator to be provided will feature the CAE True electric motion system, Medallion-6000 image generator and the common database architecture.

In other company developments, CAE's reported it has been awarded a five-year contract by BAE Systems to provide on-site maintenance and support services for India's Hawk synthetic training equipment.

The Indian air force operates a Hawk flight training device, two Hawk cockpit procedures trainers and a Hawk avionics part-task trainer.

The maintenance and support services will be performed by CAE India.

CAE didn't provide a financial breakdown for the awards.