In 1951, corporate pilot Albert Lee Ueltschi rented a Link trainer to provide pilot training in the Marine Air Terminal at New York’s LaGuardia Airport under the name FlightSafety, Inc. Essentially an eight-foot-long by two-foot-wide wooden box in the shape of an airplane with a 10-foot wingspan (when wings were connected), the Link trainer ran on compressed air controlled by the pilot inside the box and an instructor at a desk. Outfitted with the same controls and instruments as an airplane, it mimicked flight and served as the world’s first flight training device (FTD). FlightSafety purchased four Link trainers in 1953, then a Link Translator (the company’s first flight simulator) in 1955.
Meanwhile, in 1949, an 18-year-old pilot from Chicago named Rudy Frasca joined the U.S. Navy and began serving as a flight instructor using Link trainers at nearby Glenview Naval Station. Frasca left the Navy after the Korean War to study aviation psychology at the University of Illinois, using Link and other early flight training devices in his research. Combining his experience from the Navy and university research, Frasca built his first flight simulator in 1958 and founded Frasca Aviation—later to become Urbana, Illinois-based Frasca International—in his garage
More than 60 years later, the two companies merged their talents when Frasca became a wholly owned subsidiary of FlightSafety International (FSI) in January 2022. The acquisition paves the way for future innovation at FSI, including the introduction of a more tactile feel to cockpit trainers.
“Our customers have told us that they would like to see more realistic cockpit trainers in our learning centers, and that’s exactly what Frasca brings to the table,” said Michael Vercio, FSI Executive Vice President of Simulation Systems. “We’re harmonizing the ability to share engineering between the two companies to build new devices in a product line that offers the renowned Frasca name as a leader in FTD markets tied to FlightSafety full-flight simulators.”
Early Days of Simulator Training
Serving as the personal pilot for Pan American World Airways president Juan Trippe, Ueltschi saw how corporate pilots didn’t have access to the same formal training as airline pilots. Founding FlightSafety was how he sought to change that and he continued to look for ways to improve this.
By 1962, Ueltschi and his growing team at FlightSafety developed their first type-specific trainer using an actual flight deck sitting atop a hydraulic motion base connected to analog computers. As new business jets—including the Falcon 20, Learjet 23, and Gulfstream II—entered service in the 1960s, FlightSafety created simulator-based training courses for each model, often using the actual flight deck or components. In 1966, Falcon Jet named FlightSafety its factory-authorized training provider, the first of more than a dozen OEMs to do so over the next 50 years. For example, FlightSafety has been an authorized training provider for Cessna since 1974.
“In engineering at Cessna nearly 15 years ago, I worked on most of their business jet lines,” said Vercio. “When we were getting ready to launch a model into service, we worked closely with FlightSafety to ensure that the simulator was ready the day the airplane went into service. We would take flight test data off our airplanes and provide data and actual aircraft parts to FlightSafety for use in the simulator, and then we engineers would sit in the pre-launch courses and validate everything the instructors were teaching.”
FlightSafety opened its first Learning Center in 1966 in Houston, and rapidly became the name in business aviation training. It added centers in Florida and California within another year and, by the end of 1969, was training more than 2,500 professional pilots and 4,000 student pilots per year in an industry that was just getting started. By 1978, the company was operating 30 simulators in 16 Learning Centers across the U.S., Canada, and Europe.
The Frasca Way
While Ueltschi concentrated on providing type training for professional pilots, Frasca developed training techniques for student pilots. Its first customer, Aviation Training Enterprises at Chicago’s Midway Airport (which later merged with Texas-based American Flyers), needed a device to train instrument students. Frasca believed motion was ineffective and promoted fixed base training devices. A movable model aircraft mounted above the instrument panel provided the cues as to how students’ control inputs affected the aircraft.
“My father’s philosophy was to always listen to the customer and the problem they’re trying to solve,” said Rudy’s son, John, who currently serves as Frasca president and CEO. “He did that with his very first customer: listened to them, watched them, worked with them, and came up with a device that met their requirements without going overboard. He didn’t get excessively involved in the latest technology, just making sure the device continued to work.”
From then on, Frasca became known for producing high-fidelity fixed-based FTDs and cockpit/procedure trainers for the flight school and university markets. The company produced its first tabletop simulation trainer in 1960; since then, it has delivered more than 3,000 devices ranging from Advanced Aviation Training Devices (AATD) to Level D Full Flight Simulators (FFS), to 70 countries worldwide.
“I remember flying around the country with [Rudy] in his Mooney and if there was a customer at that airport, we’d stop in, look at their simulator, and fix it if needed,” John said. “I remember him saying a broken simulator doesn’t earn anybody any money. He just had that way of thinking: the integrity to do what you say you’re going to do, to build a good product to meet the customer’s requirements and keep it working.”
Simulator training became a family business as Rudy put all eight of his kids to work either at Frasca International or at the airfield that he bought in 1980. John earned his first paycheck sweeping floors in 1972 at the age of 12. He progressed from general laborer to working in the machine shop, then in the electronics shop helping to design the simulators.
“I studied electrical engineering at the University of Illinois for a year, but decided I was having more fun building the simulators,” John said. “So, I dropped out and started working full-time on the sims, then led project management and progressively more things. Each step of the way, Dad would let go and let us kids take it over. So it was essentially a 50-year succession plan.”
Rudy and Ueltschi crossed paths many times as their companies grew to become leaders in flight simulation and training—Frasca focused on small general aviation aircraft used by flight schools and universities while FlightSafety concentrated mainly on larger business aircraft and regional jets. Each company incorporated myriad innovations in its simulators, from analog to digital controls, from fixed to full-motion bases, and from no visual systems to realistic 3D renderings and virtual/mixed-reality systems. Over time, Frasca has purchased material from FSI to build equipment, and FSI has purchased simulators from Frasca.
In early 2021, FlightSafety selected Frasca as a subcontractor on its U.S. Navy TH-73A aircrew training services contract. The two companies worked together in earnest as Frasca developed Level 6 and 7 TH-73A Advanced Helicopter Training System FTDs while FlightSafety supplied the instructors and aircrew training support. The eight new FTDs already delivered to the Navy are being used for curriculum design, validation, and verification, and to provide initial rotor-wing training, including hover, formation flight, night-vision device, and shipboard operations, as well as course-rules familiarity and instrument flying. In addition, Frasca is modifying 10 TH-57B/C FTDs to reflect the TH-73A helicopter.
“Frasca did a fantastic job on the devices that they manufactured and delivered to FlightSafety and the Navy,” said Vercio. “So, when we saw that performance and high quality, we realized that we’d found a partner in Frasca that could enhance the lower-level training devices that we’re not really good at developing. Bringing these two great companies together will pay dividends in terms of having the best-quality training across the entire training spectrum.”
Joint Future of Simulation
FlightSafety’s acquisition of Frasca couldn’t come at a better time for the flight training industry as it struggles to provide the number of capable pilots needed to ease a shortage predicted prior to—and exacerbated by—the Covid-19 pandemic. With an estimated shortfall of 17,000 to 30,000 pilots needed by the airline industry in 2023, and even business aviation pilot training impacted due to lack of instructors and facilities available, FlightSafety plans to incorporate Frasca strengths to funnel pilots through training faster without sacrificing quality.
“We’ve seen a lot of pilots coming in with fewer hours than before, so we’ve had to alter our courseware and training mechanisms to make sure that we’re bringing those pilots up to speed faster,” Vercio said. “By bringing more Frasca tactile-feel FTDs into our Learning Centers, we can increase the students’ learning outside the Level D sims using the FTDs to grasp ‘switchology’ and routine procedure training. So when you do get to your Level D, you’re actually using it to train for emergencies, adverse conditions, and to get checkrides completed.”
Engineers from FlightSafety’s simulator manufacturing facility in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, have already begun sharing flight characteristics and programming data with Frasca engineers to enhance FTDs for use at FSI Learning Centers and in the collegiate markets already cultivated by Frasca. In return, Frasca is creating technologies that fit specific market needs, such as its mixed-reality simulation for military helicopter training.
“Simulation is a mix of expertise and technologies that all have to improve in harmony,” John said. “It doesn’t happen overnight. You start by prototyping ideasand then you produce demonstration products to get user feedback. Then develop production units such as the TH73 Mixed Reality Part Task Trainers. We’re seeing a lot of success with mixed reality, which combines real-world tactile controls and virtual-reality goggles. It works in certain segments of simulation, certain training tasks, but you can’t apply it to everything.”
Frasca demonstrated its mixed-reality helicopter trainer in the FlightSafety booth at the 2022 IITSEC conference, inviting pilots from all backgrounds and abilities to fly the sim. Taking up a mere five-by-eight-foot footprint, the sim includes a two seat, fully enclosed cockpit with complete panels and controls. Mixed-reality goggles combine a virtual reality depiction of the outside world with real-world images of the cockpit instruments, controls and pilots. Sensors track the pilot’s eye movements so the instructor can see where the pilot is looking—especially crucial during instrument training.
“It’s astonishing how good the mixed-reality trainers are,” John said. “I don’t know that mixed reality is quite ready to substitute for aircraft time, but it’s going to lead to that. We’re at that initial step of a new technology finding its way, and I truly expect it to expand from the defense world into the commercial world. That’s exciting.”