12 mars 2019 | Local, Aérospatial

Simulating the ‘SuperScooper’

The Viking CL-415 “SuperScooper” is more akin to a pick-up truck than a sports car.

It's a hardworking, amphibious turboprop that was built to fight wildfires.

It flies low, battling blistering heat and blinding smoke, before releasing 13,500 pounds of water in six seconds – and then returning to a nearby lake where it skims the surface to reload.

Introduced in 1993 by Bombardier, the CL-415 was essentially a turboprop version of its predecessor, the piston-powered CL-215. Today, there are close to 170 CL-215/415 aircraft in operation, mostly in Europe and North America. They are now supported by Viking Air, which acquired the program from Bombardier in 2016.

Pilot training in the CL-415 has historically been done in the aircraft, but TRU Simulation + Training says that due to the unique mission it performs, those training flights can be dangerous.

The South Carolina-headquartered company is a division of industry giant Textron Inc., and was formed following the amalgamation of several specialty flight simulation and pilot training companies, including former Montreal-based Mechtronix.

About two years ago, TRU's commercial aviation division in Montreal began designing the world's first CL-415 full flight simulator (FFS) with the capability to replicate operations not only in the air, but also on the water. The company was able to draw on its recent experience of successfully building a Series 400 Twin Otter FFS for Canada's Pacific Sky Aviation in Calgary, Alta. – the world's first seaplane simulator with water-handling capabilities.

“Before the Twin Otter project, hydrodynamic modelling is something we hadn't done before,” acknowledged Thom Allen, TRU's vice-president of Technology and Innovation. “It's like a boat simulator because you're modelling the buoyancy of the floats or the fuselage in the water. Interestingly, our engineers working on the Twin Otter program actually went to the library and researched how boats work on the water. Mixing the boat sim with the aerodynamic sim is the whole package.”

He said the CL-415 experience took things one step further by adding the mission component – scooping the water – to the Twin Otter build.

“From a safety point of view, the types of missions you do in a waterbomber are quite a bit different from a commercial aircraft. When you're scooping water and dropping it over a fire, training in those conditions is very dangerous. The tradeoff has always been between the quality of the training and the danger of doing that sort of training.”

TRU's CL-415 FFS was delivered to Ansett Aviation Training in Milan, Italy, in September 2018 and certified by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) in December to Level D standards. Although training courses have yet to be completed in the simulator, the hope is that both initial and recurrent pilot training will be done exclusively in the device.

Allen said the operational characteristics of a CL-415 are complex and unique.

“When you're flying over a very hot fire, you drop your water and the mass of the aircraft is cut in half. The turbulence effect is quite significant when you hit the updraft. The fire is creating turbulence, smoke, reduced visibility – and pilots are dropping every five or 10 minutes repeatedly, usually in rugged terrain at low altitudes. This is the part that made this project something new.”

To gather accurate performance data, TRU rented a CL-415 and equipped it with flight test instrumentation.

“We weren't doing fire drops with our engineers on board, but we did all the manoeuvres around that, and we brought in a number of senior CL-415 pilots to evaluate our work.”

The result is the world's first high fidelity CL-415 simulator with the capability of replicating not just air and water operations, but various types and intensities of forest fires and changes in related environmental conditions. The cockpit noise level is accurately reproduced by a secondary audio system that – like the real aircraft – requires crewmembers to wear a noise-cancelling headset.

Full article: https://www.skiesmag.com/news/simulating-the-superscooper

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24 août 2020 | Local, Aérospatial

Maintenance on Snowbirds aircraft will be increased, some flight restrictions put in place after two crashes
David Pugliese • Ottawa Citizen Maintenance on the Canadian military aircraft used by the Snowbirds will be increased and flying operations involving those planes will be restricted, the Canadian Forces announced Monday. Brig.-Gen. Denis O'Reilly, commander of 2 Canadian Air Division, said that the operational pause on the CT-114 Tutor fleet had been lifted but that new measures were being implemented in the wake of two crashes of Snowbirds aircraft in the last year. The operational pause was brought in following a Snowbirds CT-114 Tutor accidentin Kamloops, B.C. on May 17, which resulted in the death of Capt. Jennifer Casey, the Snowbirds public affairs officer. Casey was a passenger in the aircraft. The pilot, Capt. Richard MacDougall, survived with serious injuries. Last year the aerobatic team was temporarily grounded by the Royal Canadian Air Force after a crash of one of its aircraft near Atlanta, Georgia. The crash happened on Oct. 13. Snowbird pilot Capt. Kevin Domon-Grenier was forced to eject from his Tutor aircraft shortly before the team's performance in Atlanta, the team stated at the time. Domon-Grenier suffered minor injuries and was taken to hospital as a precaution following the ejection. The Tutor jet crashed into a farmer's field and there were no injuries on the ground. The return to flying operations follows a technical and operational risk analysis that has outlined a series of risk mitigation measures, according to the Canadian Forces. Due to the fact that there were two CT-114 Tutor accidents within eight months, the scope of the analysis was designed to be deliberate, detailed and broad to enhance the general safety of the CT-114 Tutor operations, it added. The measures being implemented place some restrictions on flying operations and focus on increased maintenance requirements. A Directorate of Flight Safety investigation into the accident that killed Casey continues. Once that investigation is complete, the Royal Canadian Air Force will determine if further mitigation measures are required, according to the Canadian Forces. The investigation into the Kamloops accident is focusing on a bird strike as well as the performance of the aircraft's escape system. The investigation into the Georgia crash determined that the most probable cause of the accident was a fuel delivery system failure within the engine. The remainder of the Snowbirds 2020 air demonstration season has been cancelled, and the team will now focus on gradually returning to flying operations, according to the Canadian Forces. The RCAF has a total of 23 CT-114 Tutor aircraft, including 18 at 431 Squadron. There are also five at the Aerospace Engineering Test Establishment at 4 Wing Cold Lake, Alta., which are on the verge of retirement and storage. https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/maintenance-on-snowbirds-aircraft-will-be-increased-some-flight-restrictions-put-in-place-after-two-crashes/wcm/93e929f3-d3f1-4d23-8677-412e9d6d941d/
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Inside the Canadian crash course training Ukrainians on Leopard tanks | CBC News
Canadian soldiers are on in Poland training their Ukrainian counterparts on how to use the Leopard tanks donated by the West. CBC News has exclusive access, to the firing range designed to teach battle-hardened Ukrainians on the sophisticated tanks sent by Canada and European nations.
17 juillet 2020 | Local, Aérospatial

CAE GmbH awarded subcontract to upgrade training capabilities for German Eurofighter
Stolberg, Germany, July 16, 2020 - CAE today announced that CAE GmbH has been awarded a subcontract from Airbus Defence and Space to support the development of new and upgraded training capabilities for Germany's Eurofighter program. Airbus, acting as the prime contractor for the Eurofighter Pilot Synthetic Training System (PSTS) consortium in Germany, awarded the subcontract to CAE GmbH to support the development of two new Eurofighter full-mission simulators and an upgrade of two existing simulators at the main operating base in Laage. Specifically, CAE will have responsibility for providing the CAE Medallion-6000 visual system and synthetic environment solution for the Eurofighter simulators. “We are pleased to collaborate with Airbus to continue our longstanding support of the German Air Force Eurofighter training program,” said Niels Kröning, General Manager, CAE GmbH. “The new Eurofighter simulators in Laage will expand the distributed mission training capabilities for the German Air Force and enable more advanced training to be conducted in the simulators.” The Eurofighter Pilot Synthetic Training System consortium is the result of a collaboration between the German and Spanish Ministries of Defence. Airbus Defence and Space acts as the prime contractor with CAE and Indra included as industry partners. CAE GmbH also provides on-site maintenance and in-service support services at Laage, Neuburg, Wittmund, and Noervenich, which are the four Eurofighter main operating bases in Germany. About CAE CAE's Defence & Security business unit focuses on helping prepare our customers to develop and maintain the highest levels of mission readiness. We are a world-class training and mission systems integrator offering a comprehensive portfolio of training and operational support solutions across the air, land, sea and public safety market segments. We serve our global defence and security customers through regional operations in Canada; the United States/Latin America; Europe/Middle East; and Asia-Pacific, all of which leverage the full breadth of CAE's capabilities, technologies and solutions. CAE is a global leader in training for the civil aviation, defence and security, and healthcare markets. Backed by a record of more than 70 years of industry firsts, we continue to help define global training standards with our innovative virtual-to-live training solutions to make flying safer, maintain defence force readiness and enhance patient safety. We have the broadest global presence in the industry, with over 10,500 employees, 160 sites and training locations in over 35 countries. Each year, we train more than 220,000 civil and defence crewmembers, including more than 135,000 pilots, and thousands of healthcare professionals worldwide. www.cae.com Follow us on Twitter @CAE_Inc and @CAE_Defence View source version on CAE: https://www.cae.com/news-events/press-releases/cae-gmbh-awarded-subcontract-to-upgrade-training-capabilities-for-german-eurofighter

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