CAE, a world leader in providing simulation and training solutions, will be delivering in the fall of this year, the C-130J simulator at Hindon airbase. At the Paris Air Show 2011, R. Chandrakanth interviewed Chris Stellwag, Director, Marketing Communications (Military), CAE. Excerpts of the interview.

SP’s Aviation (SP’s): Could you tell us about CAE’s presence in the defence sector in India?

Chris Stellwag (Chris): In 2007, CAE acquired Macmet Technologies in India and became CAE India which addresses the military market. Since then, we see that India has increased its defence budgets and is acquiring new platforms and reequipping its armed forces. Like all other armed forces, India is also looking at ways to train its armed forces and maintain readiness, and all cost-effectively. Simulation is one of the best solutions for very realistic and cost-effective training.

SP’s: Could you give an update on the C-130J simulator programme?

Chris: Currently, CAE is building the C-130J simulator under subcontract with Lockheed Martin and will be delivering the simulator in the fall of this year at Hindon airbase. It will be ready for training in February 2012. We were put under contract in June 2009 and now the final integration testing programme is on at the CAE plant in Tampa Florida, US. It will be packed and shipped in October and installed at Hindon where again it would undergo testing.

SP’s: Do you stipulate how long the training programme by the IAF has to be?

Chris: We do not stipulate. It is for the Indian Air Force to decide on the duration of the training programme—how much time in the classroom, in the simulator and in an aircraft. We are simulating the aircraft to the highest fidelity and the IAF tells us what needs to be simulated—it could be avionics, weapon systems, etc.

SP’s: How is the joint venture with HAL progressing?

Chris: We have delivered and qualified a second cockpit for the Dhruv (civil variant) simulator at the helicopter training centre in the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). Currently, the simulator features cockpits for two different helicopter types—Bell 412 and the Dhruv civil variant. We have two more in development, for the Eurocopter Dauphin and the Army and the Navy variants of the Dhruv.

There are a lot of opportunities on the rotary wing side as India is acquiring additional helicopters. We are looking at additional capacities with HAL for other helicopter types. Also India is acquiring the P-8I aircraft and we are looking at potential opportunities with Boeing on simulation for that. CAE is already under subcontract in the US for P-8I simulators. If the Indian Navy decides, then it will be a logical choice. India is contemplating more maritime helicopters. Two of the contenders, I believe are NH19 and S70 Seahawk. We are as such doing the NH19 naval variant for the Netherlands and Italy and we have simulators for S70 Seahawk in the US.

SP’s: What about combat aircraft. Do you have any programmes?

Chris: CAE is one of the owners of Eurofighter simulation systems in Germany. CAE has had a role in developing the synthetic environment software and also the visual systems. CAE has a product called Medallion 6000 visual system that is used on the Eurofighter. Should it win the medium multirole combat aircraft (MMRCA) deal, there is potential for CAE to continue the simulation role.

SP’s: Considering the Indian defence acquisitions, what kind of numbers are you looking at for various training solutions?

Chris: It is really hard to say…different militaries have different balance between synthetic and live training. We believe the future holds more for synthetic training because of the compelling financial benefits it brings and the kind of training it would do. You wouldn’t go in a real aircraft and do an engine fire…safety would be compromised in live training…for those kind of reasons simulation is ideal.

The other reason is the cost effectiveness of simulation. It costs one-tenth of training as compared to flying in an aircraft for an hour. Sometimes it may be less for a light utility helicopter and over one-tenth for a combat aircraft. We see a trend globally for militaries to increase the use of synthetic training. India has started seeing the value of simulation training. At the HAL training centre, many defence personnel come for high-fidelity simulation training. We think India is a market which will adopt simulation faster than they have in the past.