Precision Flight Controls (PFC) of Rancho Cordova, California, has brought an in-development advanced aviation training device (AATD) for the Bell 206B/407GX to Heli-Expo 2017 in Dallas. The company is working in partnership with Ryan Aerospace, Southport, Australia to bring the AATD to the market.
Mike Altman, president and CEO, who started the company in 1991, is a U.S. Air Force pilot with experience in C-141s and C-5s and small airplanes. Bill Grava, director of business development spent 26 years with the FAA as an air traffic controller, tower and radar supervisor and after that flew business jets, including the Challenger 300 and Embraer 145.
“We teamed up with Chris Ryan of Ryan Aerospace in Australia,” Altman said. “We saw a market for a high-fidelity, midrange-cost training device—an AATD—which will be the first approval it will get, hopefully later this year, depending on the FAA. We are working toward a level 7 FTD [flight training device].”
Altman added that most of the simulator's equipment is produced in-house. “We don’t buy a lot of equipment that is off-the-shelf,” he said. “Everything that goes into the flight models we design ourselves. We control the manufacturing. We have the capability of doing everything in our machine shop, except sheet metal.”
Most of the devices that PFC has produced are for a range of aircraft types, ranging from a Cessna 172 G1000 to a Boeing 737-800. “A lot of our devices are multitasking, meaning they can be changed on the fly to be used with up to 40 aircraft by doing some simple changes,” he said. “The core software is the professional version of X-Plane [by Laminar Research], which is basically a visual generator for us—you can put the aircraft anywhere in the world in real time or simulated weather.”
The external visual system comprises a Quantum3D image generator, which feeds six 4K, 70-inch HD LED-backlit monitors.
The cockpit is positioned on a 3-DOF D-Box Technologies motion platform that provides additional realism and a high level of motion cueing.
Positioning, weather scenarios and equipment failures are controlled from the instructor’s operating station. The AATD’s design makes it possible to change the instrument panel to a Bell 407 configuration with glass panel displays.
“We will adjust the flight models to replicate the aircraft to the most exacting performance specifications that we can,” Grava said. “This adds realism to the learning experience. And every switch in the training device works like it does in the real aircraft.”
“The simulator here at Heli-Expo is an all-metal design, because it holds tolerances better than fiberglass and other plastic materials,” Altman continued. “Chris Ryan, who has a lot of helicopter experience, is the expert on flight control hardware, so he provides the collective, cyclic and pedals. We control all the other design work. We can create a simulator that is representative of the real aircraft at a much lower price.”
The main customers for Precision Flight Controls products are colleges and universities, flight-training organizations and operators. “ATP, with some 40 of our simulators, is one of our bigger customers,” Altman said.
The company has a few customers who are looking at the Bell 206B/407GX AATD now. One is the FAA’s human factors lab in Oklahoma City; another is scheduled to go to China. “We’re a few months from getting the AATD approved. The qualification guys have been committed and are ready to come and check it out when we’re ready,” said Altman. The goal is to have the training device approved as a level 7 Flight Training Device (FTD) as soon as possible after the AATD approval.