Textron's TRU Simulation & Training is preparing to bid on a forthcoming U.S. Navy request for proposal (RFP) that seeks to stretch the service life of the service's Bell TH-57 Sea Hawk trainers by shifting 9 percent of the in-aircraft training to simulators, or about 7,000 flight hours per year. The Navy's TH-57s, derivatives of the 206B-3 JetRanger III, are 35 years old with at least 25,000 hours per aircraft. The fleet's age makes for rising maintenance costs. The Navy will eventually replac these aircraft with new single-engine IFR aircraft, the Advanced Helicopter Training System (ATS), but that could be years in the offing. The Navy trains 500 primary helicopter pilots per year for itself, the Marines, the Coast Guard and foreign services from Whiting Field in Pensacola, Fla.
Contract awards for the simulators could come by early next year, according to Eric Buer, TRU's capture lead for the contract competition and a former Marine Corps helicopter pilot. Nine months later the first three simulators have to be operational at Whiting Field in Pensacola. Within 24 months all 14 devices have to be fully operational and the winning bidder must dispose of current six instrument trainers and static systems the Navy uses for procedural training. The Navy is looking to acquire 14 flight-training devices (FTDs), a mix of static Level 6s and full-motion Level 7s.

Buer said TRU's Level 7s will feature the electric “mini-motion” system with six degrees of throw and high-fidelity graphics providing a 220-degree field of view (including the chin bubble), be capable of linking together for practicing skills like formation flying, and be night-vision-goggle capable. It also incorporates what Buer called the “hover helper,” which allows instructors to limit control inputs to teach people more quickly how to hover and can be loaded with multi-mission features for the Navy's training client base such as sea states, search-and-rescue patterns and shipboard operations for the Coast Guard. The high-definition visual cueing means students will be able to see details down to which way “the grass blows and the leaves move.”

Buer said the Navy is looking for a turnkey operation with ground instruction, simulator instruction, simulators and simulator maintenance and is seeking robust devices capable of operating 18 hours a day, six days a week. “It really would relieve a lot of stress on the Navy while allowing it to produce a better pilot while at the same time taking stress off the fleet of JetRangers until they can make the leap to the next Advanced Helicopter Training System.” Given that the Navy has replacement aircraft in mind, Buer noted that TRU's simulators would easily convert, largely via software upgrades, to be compatible with whatever ATS single-engine helicopter the service selects.