Making its debut at Heli-Expo this year is flight training device manufacturer Redbird Flight Simulations. The San Marco, Texas-based company, which for the past decade has concentrated mainly on fixed-wing training devices, recently made its first foray into the rotary-wing market with the launch of its VTO motion trainer.
“There isn’t a better format for us to really start talking about it with qualified customers than Heli-Expo,” said Charles Gregoire, company president and COO. He explained that while the company has previously displayed the trainer during the course of its development at shows such as Sun ‘N Fun and EAA AirVenture, “this is the first time that what we consider to be the complete product has been shown off to a group of highly qualified helicopter operators.” Redbird has one of the devices, which sells for $150,000, available for demonstrations at its booth (2804).
“We thought if we can build a device that can actually teach someone how to hover—and that means it has to have a motion platform—it has to be able to give the sensation in the seat of the pants of what’s going on with that aircraft at any one time,” noted Gregoire, son of company founder Jerry Gregoire, who retired at the beginning of the year. “Now you can offload the most difficult and dangerous things to learn in an actual helicopter, which is maneuvers close to the ground, trying to hover, and autorotation, so that’s what we built this device to do.”
The company leaned heavily on its previous experience when it came to designing the VTO model. “It’s a lot like our fixed-wing sims,” stated Gregoire. “It is somewhat generic, but it's made to emulate but not replicate a specific airframe. It’s interchangeable, so you can emulate a Robinson R22, and that’s the unit we are bringing to Heli-Expo.” He added that customers can quickly swap out components to configure it to an R44 or a Bell 47. “The nice thing about the VTO platform is it is essentially a base platform that can be developed upon,” he told AIN. “We can develop it, as there’s a critical demand in the marketplace for other training platforms.” Currently the company is eyeing the new R44 Cadet training helicopter for adaptation to the device. “The aircraft performance is the same, but it’s the gauge cluster and the avionics that the pilot would be interfacing with that would change,” he added.
Thinking Outside the Box
“The platform that we have here with this VTO is unlike any other platform on the market,” said Gregoire. While most motion simulators involve the cab’s situation on top of a forest of hydraulic or electric actuators, Redbird went in a different direction in terms of the engineering design of its helicopter simulator. “Imagine a meatball in a bowl, and the meatball is just sitting there in the middle, that’s the cab of the simulator,” he explained. “It’s all built into a dual-gimbal design and everything is balanced, so to move it requires very little energy.” That translates into the device being able to run off a standard outlet rather than a specialized power supply.
Also different from most motion simulators is the fact that the device can be installed in a standard classroom. “We’ve always tried to design devices that can be utilized by every flight school, not just the flight schools that have a 30,000-sq-ft, four-story facility,” noted Gregoire. “We believe in the inherent safety of simulation training. That’s why we do this. But the only way we are going to get increased acceptance in the marketplace is to make it accessible. These are going into flight schools and flight training operations at any airport.”
Currently there are four of the devices in service; the most recent delivered to the U.S. Naval Academy in December. The company has two more units presently under construction, and the build takes approximately 12 weeks from time of order.