Independently owned and operated helicopter air ambulance service provider Air Evac Lifeteam has purchased seven Frasca advanced aviation training devices (AATDs) from Frasca International (Booth 4917) of Urbana, Illinois. Air Evac plans to use the AATDs for recurrent training of its 600 pilots every four months, focusing on HAA operating procedures and flight into inadvertent IMC.
The AATD replicates the flight deck of the Bell 206L4 and may be used in place of the actual aircraft for some of the training time required for a helicopter instrument rating. The training devices feature Frasca’s TruVision visual system that uses the same database featured on Air Evac’s current level 7 FTD, which it received from Frasca last year.
Air Evac flies some 140 Bell 206L4s (or equivalent) and 10 Bell 407s from 132 bases in 15 states. The operator plans to install six of the AATDs in trailers and position them in six states. The seventh “fixed-base” AATD will be positioned at the company’s training center in O’Fallon, Missouri.
Frasca Level 7 FTD for Royal Canadian Air Force
Separately, Frasca has sold a Level 7 FTD for the Bell CH-139 Jet Ranger to the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) No. 3 Flying Training School. The RCAF simulation strategy 2025, announced in 2015, calls for optimization of simulation across all air force training activities. The FTD is scheduled to be installed in March 2018, with training to begin the following month.
Frasca has provided helicopter FTDs and full-flight simulators to several defense and para-public government agencies, including the German Federal Police, the Republic of Singapore Air Force, the New York Police Department, and the U.S. Army.