Rotorsim, the joint venture owned equally by CAE (NYSE: CAE; TSX: CAE) and Finmeccanica - AgustaWestland, today announced that it has recently surpassed 100,000 hours of simulator training.
Rotorsim was established in 2003 and officially welcomed its first class of students in June 2006. The joint venture of Finmeccanica - AgustaWestland and CAE was initially established to provide synthetic training solutions for the AW109 Power and AW139 helicopter operators with CAE-built Roll On/Roll Off (RORO) Level D full-flight simulators, and has expanded to include AW109 LUH, AW109N, AW189 and NH90 training. The Rotorsim training centre in Italy is located within the Finmeccanica - AgustaWestland 'A. Marchetti' Training Academy in Sesto Calende. Rotorsim also offers training on a CAE-built AW139 simulator located at CAE's North East Training Centre near New York City.
Daniele Romiti, AgustaWestland CEO, commented, "This significant milestone for Rotorsim highlights our commitment to delivering high quality training services to our customers to enable them to enhance safety and mission effectiveness. We will continue our strategy to expand our training services in which Rotorsim is a key element."
"Surpassing 100,000 hours of simulator training in less than eight years is a remarkable milestone for Rotorsim," said Gene Colabatistto, Group President, Defence & Security, CAE. "We are proud that simulator training has proven to be a safe, cost-efficient and effective learning environment for AgustaWestland helicopter operators, and expect that achieving the next 100,000 hours will take even less time as customers increasingly leverage the high-fidelity simulator training programs available at Rotorsim."
Rotorsim's flight simulation capability, with an impressive 98% availability, currently includes five CAE Level D full-flight simulators in Sesto Calende with the most recent additions being the second AW139 and first AW189 simulators. The cockpits for AW109 Power, AW109 LUH, AW109N and first AW139 can also be transferred into an additional fixed-based Flight Training Device (FTD) docking station. The original AW139 FFS had recently been upgraded to include visual and scenario enhancements and the NH90 military FFS supports the training of pilots from four Nations. In the USA, the AW139 FFS had also been upgraded to deliver Phase 7 software capability as well as enhancements to the visual and scenarios and additional capacity is provided by an AW/Frasca FTD at FAA Level 6.
Rotorsim will be continuing to expand and in 2015 will add the world's first-ever AW169 full-flight simulator to the Rotorsim training centre in Italy. The CAE 3000 Series AW169 simulator will be ready-for-training in summer 2015. A second CAE 3000 Series AW189 simulator, designed specifically to support training for search and rescue operations, will be ready-for-training in 2015.
About AgustaWestland
Finmeccanica - AgustaWestland is a total capability provider in the vertical lift market. Through its rotorcraft systems design, development, production and integration capabilities, its experience in the training business and its customer focused Integrated Operational Support solutions, the Company delivers unrivalled mission capability to military and commercial operators around the world. This expertise, backed by technological excellence and innovation, makes the Company a leader in a number of the world's most important helicopter markets offering the widest range of advanced rotorcraft available for both commercial and military applications. www.agustawestland.com
About CAE
CAE is a global leader in providing comprehensive training solutions based on world-leading simulation technology and integrated training services. The company employs 8,000 people at more than 160 sites and training locations in 35 countries. Our vision is to be our customers' Partner of Choice and we take a long-term approach to customer relationships. We offer our civil aviation and defence and security customers a complete range of highly innovative product, service and training centre solutions designed to help them meet their mission critical needs for safety, efficiency and readiness. We provide similar solutions to customers in healthcare and mining. CAE has the largest installed base of civil and military flight simulators, supported by a range of after-sales services, and has been serving the needs of its customers for nearly 70 years. We have the broadest training services network in the world and offer civil aviation, military and helicopter training services in 67 locations worldwide and train more than 120,000 civil and military crewmembers annually. www.cae.com
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Note to editors:
Photo: A high-resolution photo is available on www.cae.com/photos
Caption: (Left to right): Daniele Romiti, AgustaWestland CEO; Marc Parent, President and CEO of CAE; and Stefano Ceriani, General Manager of Rotorsim, celebrate Rotorsim's milestone of surpassing 100,000 hours of simulator training.
Video: A video Roll On/Roll Off (RORO) full-flight simulator capability is available at www.cae.com/videos
Contacts:
AgustaWestland contact:
Geoff Russell, Head of Media Relations
Tel: +44 (1935) 701117; Mob: +44 (7894) 005872, [email protected]
CAE contacts:
Nathalie Bourque, Vice President, Public Affairs and Global Communications,
+1-514-734-5788, [email protected]
Trade media: Chris Stellwag, Director, Marketing Communications, Defence & Security,
+1-813- 887-1242, [email protected]
Investor relations: Andrew Arnovitz, Vice President, Strategy and Investor Relations,
+1-514-734-5760, [email protected]
