Airbus Military Receives Order for the UK’s First A400M Full Flight Simulator and Its Support System

July 9, 2012 defpro.com

On behalf of the UK Ministry of Defence, the OCCAR multinational organisation for the management of European Collaborative Defence programmes has placed an order with Airbus Military to supply the UK’s first A400M Full Flight Simulator (FFS). The contract, worth about £50 million, also includes a Simulator Support System (SSS), enabling the capabilities of the simulator to be fully exploited for flight training and military mission rehearsal.

The simulator will be located at the RAF Brize Norton base, where all 22 UK A400Ms will be based, and will be delivered in spring 2014, ahead of the first delivery to the Royal Air Force later in 2014. The FFS will be maintained by a joint venture consisting of Airbus Military and Thales.

Airbus Military will procure the simulator from Thales Training & Simulation Ltd (TTSL), part of Thales UK, while Airbus Military supplies the aircraft parts and equipment plus a data & software package to enable the simulator to accurately replicate the A400M’s flight and mission characteristics. Airbus Military and Thales have been co-operating since February 2007 on the FFS and the Simulator Support System and A400M Training Services for France and UK.

The FFS employs state-of-the-art visual and motion technology developed by Thales with the simulator being developed and produced in Crawley, UK, sustaining 50 UK jobs and associated skills. The software & data package provided by Airbus Military and its industrial partners is developed on the basis of Airbus commercial practice as this reduces to a minimum the time taken for any A400M aircraft changes to be reflected in the simulators.

This will be the fourth FFS of the type to be produced – with the first ordered for Airbus Military’s International Training Centre in Seville, Spain, and the second and third ordered by France and Germany. Further FFSs are expected to be ordered by the A400M partnering nations, representing a significant investment in UK jobs and technology.

THE A400M

The A400M is an all new military airlifter designed to meet the needs of the world’s Armed Forces in the 21st Century. Thanks to its most advanced technologies, it is able to fly higher, faster and further, while retaining high manoeuvrability, low speed, and short, soft and rough airfield capabilities. It combines both tactical and strategic/logistic missions, while being also able to be used as a tanker plane. With its cargo hold specifically designed to carry the outsize equipment needed today for both military and humanitarian disaster relief missions, it can bring this material quickly and directly to where it is most needed. Conceived to be highly reliable, dependable, and with a great survivability, the multipurpose A400M can do the job of three of today’s different aircraft models in a single one. This means smaller fleets and less investment from the operator. Able to do more with less, the A400M is the most cost efficient and versatile airlifter ever conceived and absolutely unique in its capabilities.