Rotorsim establishes training centre in Italy

Rotorsim, the consortium owned equally by CAE and Agusta S.p.A., an AgustaWestland company, will establish a new helicopter training centre in Sesto Calende, Italy to provide integrated training solutions for AgustaWestland helicopters.

The training centre is being established within the frame of the Agusta Training Centre, in Sesto Calende, which is located a short distance from Agusta's headquarters in Cascina Costa.

The training centre will open in 2005 with the delivery of a CAE-built A109 full mission simulator (FMS) for training military and civil customers of the A109 helicopter. Rotorsim initially expects the A109 FMS to generate revenues of approximately EUR 80 million (C$125 million) over 15 years. Training solutions for additional Agusta helicopter platforms are expected to be added in the future.

"The Rotorsim consortium represents a key part of CAE's strategy to partner with original equipment manufacturers to provide turnkey training services," said Donald W. Campbell, group president, military simulation and training, CAE.

The centre will be used for both flight and maintenance training, and offer customers initial, conversion, recurrent, and mission training. It will feature multimedia classrooms, computer-based training, a maintenance training area, and training management information system. The A109 FMS will consist of two cockpits in a roll-in/roll-out configuration: one representing the A109 Power; the other representing the military A109 Light Utility Helicopter (LUH). The A109 FMS will be equipped with the CAE Medallion-S(TM) visual system.

"Offering comprehensive training solutions to our customers was a key objective for AgustaWestland," commented Bruno Spagnolini, Rotorsim chairman and AgustaWestland marketing and sales director. "Providing synthetic aircrew training will enhance pilot capabilities and reduce costs in the long-term for our customers that operate Agusta airframes."

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