DUBAI — Canadian firm CAE landed $113 million in contracts from the Untied Arab Emirates to design and develop a comprehensive Naval training center and to provide a suite of helicopter simulators and training devices to the UAE's Joint Aviation Command.
According to a statement released by CAE on June 15, the Comprehensive Naval Training Centre (NTC) will support individual, team, whole ship, and joint/collective mission training capabilities. The helicopter simulators for the Joint Aviation Command will feature the NorthStar Aviation 407 Multi-Role Helicopter (407MRH) as well as the Sikorsky UH-60M Armed Black Hawk.
Under the NTC contract, CAE will design and develop Phase A of the training center. Potential phases for the NTC program could be worth over US$350 million over the next 15 years. The facility will feature a range of integrated ship simulation-based training suites as well as maritime aircraft sensor stations that will be used to deliver training for individuals, command teams, and whole ship crews, the company said in their statement.
In addition, the overall naval training system for the UAE Navy is being designed for networking and interoperability to enable distributed multi-platform and joint mission training.
"This is a major strategic win for CAE and clearly demonstrates our capabilities to serve as a training systems integrator across all defence domains," said Gene Colabatistto, group president for CAE Defence & Security.
"The UAE Navy selected CAE as its training partner because of our focus and expertise in training, and the result will be a comprehensive naval training enterprise that helps the UAE Navy achieve a high level of fleet operational readiness."
The NTC will be located in Al-Taweelah in the emirate of Abu Dhabi with connectivity to several other naval and air bases throughout the UAE. The NTC is expected to be complete and ready-for-training by early 2019.
The helicopter simulators suite and training devices for the 407MRH and the UH-60M Black Hawk will be delivered to the UAE during 2017 and 2018 respectively, CAE said.
For the NorthStar Aviation 407MRH, a modified variant of the Bell 407GX specifically designed for light attack, close air support, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions, CAE will design and manufacture a high-fidelity, fixed-based Level-7 equivalent flight training device (FTD). In addition, CAE will provide a suite of desktop trainers and brief/debrief systems.
CAE said that they will be working closely with NorthStar Aviation, who last year signed a collaboration agreement with CAE to conduct flight test data collection and support the development of high-fidelity training devices for the 407MRH.
"The UAE as well as other Gulf Cooperation Council countries are making significant investments in simulation-based training," said Colabatistto. "These will be the first simulator and training devices developed for the 407MRH so our partnership with NorthStar Aviation along with CAE's extensive experience with helicopter simulation will help ensure we deliver world-class training systems on-schedule."
The UH-60M/ABH full-mission simulator representing the armed variant of the Black Hawk helicopter will feature a six-degree-of-freedom motion system, vibration platform, and extreme field-of-view display system.
The simulators and training devices for both the 407MRH and UH-60M will include the CAE Medallion-6000 image generator with Common Database (CDB) architecture, which will further enhance networked, interoperable mission training across platforms.
Awad Mustafa was a Middle East and Africa correspondent for Defense News.
