First new helo simulators in 40 years

The Navy's Commander Training Air Wing Five (CTW-5) at Naval Air Station Whiting Field, Fla., has accepted its first new TH-57 flight simulator in about 40 years. The simulator, the first of 10 to be delivered over the next year, is already being used for helicopter training operations. The similar is a significant technology advancement and upgrade to naval aviator training, according to Cmdr. Aaron Beattie, CTW-5 rotary simulator integration lead officer. “It improves our ability to train student aviators in night-vision environments and the simulator displays are a vast improvement over the 1980s technology our current simulators afford,” he said. CTW-5 has trained all Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard helicopter pilots at NASWF for the past 30 years, using the instrument-rated TH-57 Sea Rangers since 1981. CTW-5 are to receive three Level 6 and seven Level 7 simulators. This first simulator was a Level 6 trainer. Two additional simulators are scheduled for delivery in March. Level 7 devices will be delivered between May 2019 and February 2020. (Source: Rotor Wing International 02/28/19) As the Navy takes delivery of these new simulators, which is a part of a bigger goal of modernizing the entire helicopter ground training system, the Navy is simultaneously working to retire its fleet of TH-57s by 2023, according to a final Request For Proposal announcement. Proposals are likely to come from three companies that are publicly competing for the work: Airbus Helicopters Inc. of Columbus, Miss., with its H135 light twin; Leonardo with its TH119 single-engine trainer, and Bell Helicopters’ 407GXi. Bell manufactured the TH-57.