$8M simulator saves money

Press, 10 November 1981, Page 38

$8M simulator saves money

By

KEN COATES,

in London

Air New Zealand, deeply in debt is spending $8 million on one of the world’s most advanced flight simulators to retrain 160 flight crew for its five new Boeing 747 jumbo jets. However the chief training pilot, Captain Peter Grundy, says the new-technology simulator, to be installed at Mangere next year, will save the airline money. He said the cost of training 110 pilots and 50 flight engineers by sending them either to Australia or the United States would be about $2.5 million. ‘‘We just cannot work efficiently without the simulator,” he said. With continuation of training and proficiency checks required under New Zea-

land’s aviation regulations every year, and the Simula- » tor used for training pilots from other countries it would soon pay for itself. For pilots to use a 747 jet airliner for all their training would cost a staggering $7OOO an hour - out of the question in these days of high fuel costs - whereas the simulator will cost less than $4OO an hour. (New Zealand’s regulations require that a DCIO pilot retraining for 747 s spend 44 hours in the simulator and two hours in the aircraft itself). Captain Grundy is m Britain making two months acceptance tests on the simulator, manufactured by Rediffusion Simulation, Ltd, at Crawley, Sussex, which supplies Boeing itself with its simulators.

The computer-regulated - MsAland. Boeing 737 and F 27 simulators will be moved from Christchurch, and DC7 and DCB simulators at Mangere will be sold. The new simulator will be installed in March and will be ready for training in June, next year. The airline has in the past trained pilots for Garuda of Indonesia, Malaysian Airlines, Ansett, and British Airways when the British carrier leased DClOs for the Los Angeles-London route. There is a precedent for looking to other airlines for additional revenue in simulator training. By November 1982, Air New Zealand will have phased out its DClOs, and will have trained all necessary aircrew for jumbo jets. This will still leave a

number of pilots trained for flying DClOs but not 7475, and redundancy agreements

will be negotiated with the Airline Pilots’ Association for them,