Recently at the 2016 Army Aviation Mission Solutions Summit, the president and GM of CAE USA verified that the 75,000 sq ft training complex at Dothan Regional Airport in Alabama (part of a approximately $200 million seven year US Army contract) was progressing despite recent legal action being filed against CAE. The current fixed-wing training provider, FlightSafety (who had fixed-wing training for the army for the last 30 years) had taken legal action in Federal Claims Court. The US Army re-evaulated the bid but ultimately found them in favor of CAE USA.
“What that means is we are under contract and are obligated to the US Army to supply training services no later than March 2017,” said Raymond Duquette, president and GM of CAE USA, speaking at the summit in Atlanta, Georgia.
The plan was initially to have the training begin by June 2016, but due to the protests and legal delays students will not begin at the facility (from Fort Rucker) until March 2017. The facilities hope to be able to train more than 600 US Army and US Air Force (USAF) fixed-wing pilots each year.
CAE USA will provide both simulation-based training and live training. The sim training will take place with full-flight simulators (FFS) and flight training devices. The live training will utilize a fleet of 10 C-12U and six Grob G120TP aircraft. The C-12U fleet will be US government owned and the Grob aircraft will be owned by CAE USA.
Two of the simulators will have the ability to have the cockpit design switched to represent different variants of the C-12 King Air aircraft used by the Army and USAF.
“There are three variants of the C-12, the US Army has two, so now instead of having two simulators we have multiple cockpits which means we can better utilize time,” said Duquette. “We don’t always get air force students, so just having a dedicated USAF simulator sitting there probably wouldn’t be cost effective.”
Also in accordance with the contract, the Army and CAE will implement a initial-entry fixed-wing (IEFW) program. The fixed-wing program will provide training to pilots transitioning from rotary wing to fixed wing aircraft. There are approximately 350 making the transition.