Training is big business in the civil sector and now we’re seeing greater levels of outsourcing in the military too, in order to harness more innovation. FINN talks to CAE’s Ian Bell.

“CAE is very fortunate – we’re spending over $1 billion in innovation and new ideas,” Bell said. “And only this past year, we’ve brought to market, or will be bringing to market, three really exciting projects.

At Farnborough Airshow in July, the company launched the CAE 700MR Series flight training device (FTD), a next-generation FTD designed specifically for military helicopter flight and mission training. It addresses military helicopter mission training priorities such as a realistic tactical synthetic environment, extreme field-of-view visual system, and architecture designed for networking and interoperability. Royal New Zealand Air Force will be the launch customer.

In October last year, CAE  announced the launch of the CAE Medallion MR e-Series Visual System, designed to deliver the industry’s most realistic and immersive virtual environment for training military fighter and fast-jet pilots. The company is currently looking for a launch customer.

“We’re also looking at exploring big data and how we can capture big data to enhance both individual training but then [also] look at multi-crew training and making that far more efficient,” Bell said.

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