EMBRY-RIDDLE TO STREAMLINE FLIGHT TRAINING WITH FRASCA SIMULATORS

Daytona Beach, Fla., Oct 15, 2001 -- Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and Frasca International Inc. announced today that they have entered into a $9.8 million contract for sophisticated flight simulation equipment.

The university will purchase 16 flight training devices for use at its campuses in Daytona Beach, Fla., and Prescott, Ariz. One FTD will simulate the Canadair regional jet and will be used in advanced flight education in Daytona Beach. The other devices will simulate the Cessna 172 and Piper PA-44 Seminole aircraft used in daily flight training activities at both campuses.

Embry-Riddle’s purchase of the Frasca devices will allow it to streamline its flight training, lower costs for its flight students, and extend the use and lifetime of its training planes.

Flight students at Embry-Riddle now receive 90 percent of their training in the air. The new Level 6 Frasca training devices will allow the university to accomplish 40 percent of the training in the FTDs and 60 percent in the air.

They will play an even more important role in Embry-Riddle’s plans to implement in 2002 an integrated flight training curriculum that will revolutionize flight training and offer a less expensive, faster, and higher-quality approach than traditional training. The high-quality aircraft-specific Frasca simulators will help the university eliminate separate training segments and duplication and take students from ab initio to commercial pilot training in one uninterrupted process. Students will be able to go from zero time to an airline pilot qualification dramatically faster than the national average.

Embry-Riddle’s undergraduate degree program in aeronautical science, which is the major of students seeking to become professional pilots, has the largest enrollment in the nation – 2,800 students.

"We’re proud to have been chosen to provide these FTDs to Embry-Riddle," said John Frasca, vice president of Frasca International. "This agreement shows Embry-Riddle’s confidence in our ability to provide the best quality devices – on schedule and within budget. We’re looking forward to working with Embry-Riddle for many years."

For students receiving ab initio training, the FTDs will offer exact aircraft-specific replication of the inside dimensions and placement of systems and instruments.

"These training devices will deliver the same high level of fidelity used today in air carrier training on large aircraft such as the Boeing 777 or the Airbus A340, but will be used in an ab initio role," said Tim Brady, dean of Embry-Riddle’s College of Aviation in Daytona Beach. "This has never been done before in a collegiate flight training environment. Students will be unable to distinguish the difference between the airplane and the training device. We’ll have a perfect transfer of training from the simulator to the airplane."

The controls of each FTD will be loaded with flight performance data from an actual airplane, enabling students to operate the device exactly as they would the aircraft. Enhancing the training experience will be realistic scenes of runways, buildings, trees, lakes, and other planes, projected on a 220-degree screen and moving appropriately in response to operation of the controls. This degree of realism will enable students to learn to fly traffic patterns in a visual flight environment.

The devices will replicate much of the training currently being done in airplanes at the university, requiring the use of fewer aircraft and allowing students to learn and practice sensitive maneuvers safely. Achieving the same flight performance objectives with less time spent in the airplane will lower flight training costs for students.

Embry-Riddle will take delivery of half of the flight training devices in July 2002 and have them operating on both campuses for the fall semester that year. The remaining FTDs will be delivered one year later.

Frasca International, based in Urbana, Ill., is known worldwide as a leader in the design and manufacture of high quality, realistic, reliable, and cost-effective flight simulators for single and twin reciprocating engine aircraft, pure jet and turbopropeller fixed-wing aircraft, and helicopters. The company has delivered more than 1,700 devices in some 70 countries since its founding in 1958. In the past 15 years, Frasca has developed a significant custom simulator market. www.frasca.com

Embry-Riddle, the world’s largest, fully accredited university specializing in aviation and aerospace, meets the needs of students and industry through its educational, training, research, and consulting activities. Embry-Riddle educates 22,000 students through the master’s level at residential campuses in Daytona Beach, Fla., and Prescott, Ariz., at more than 100 teaching sites in the United States and Europe, and through distance learning. www.embryriddle.edu