By 2030, United Airlines plans to hire at least 10,000 pilots to both fill retirement vacancies and to fly its additional 500+ new aircraft expected to be online by that date. A bold plan like this requires bold execution. United opened United Aviate Academy (UAA) in December 2021 with the goal of training half of those needed pilots at a rate of 500 a year to maintain a strong pipeline of qualified aviators for years to come. United is the only major U.S. airline to own a flight training school. (more…)

The law of primacy states how we first learn to perform a skill will be the way we best remember how to execute that skill, regardless of whether what we learned was correct or not. It is hard to unlearn what we were first taught and relearn how to perform a skill a new way. For flight instruction, it is imperative we teach and learn skills properly and completely the first time to avoid mistakes in the flight deck. (more…)

Despite affordable rotorcraft simulator solutions on the market today, many helicopter pilots learn to fly exclusively in the helicopter. However, for obvious safety reasons, aircraft-only training does not allow for realistic simulated emergencies. Instead, pilots simulate emergency procedures in the aircraft by talking through the steps and touching switches rather than actuating them. They are also not experiencing or seeing realistic cues present in a true emergency. Unfortunately, when an emergency occurs, the transfer of knowledge to a real response does not fully transfer and accidents are not avoided. (more…)

Frasca’s deliveries of the U.S. Navy’s Leonardo TH-73A Advanced Helicopter Training System are on time with all eight contracted new flight training devices (FTDs) delivered, installed, and hard at work.

In April 2021, Frasca was named subcontractor for the Navy’s TH-73A Aircrew Training Services (ATS) contract. FlightSafety Defense won the contract award to provide Contractor Instructional Services (CIS) and availability on 18 Frasca-designed and manufactured Level 6 and Level 7 Flight Training Devices (FTDs). FlightSafety subcontracted with Frasca to install 8 new TH-73 FTDs and modify the 10 existing TH-57B/C FTDs to reflect the new Navy aircraft. (more…)

Flight training devices and full flight simulators give pilots a simulated aircraft experience to replicate their own environments, mission scenarios and potential emergencies. Advancements in simulation capabilities like computing power, algorithms, visual enhancements, sub-systems, avionics integrations and extended reality technologies are vastly improving helicopter and fixed-wing simulation training. (more…)

Like many companies who regularly attended Trade Shows before Covid emerged, Frasca had no choice but to sit out events for a good eighteen months while shows were cancelled or postponed due to shut-downs.  Now that many shows are up and running again, we’re back on the road again – ready to meet customers and industry friends face to face. (more…)

How Much Does a Frasca Flight Simulator Cost?

This is a great question and one we get more than any other. The quick answer is that price depends on several factors; training needs, the aircraft type, the level of the device qualification (FAA, JAA or equivalent), device features and more. Due to the wide range of flight simulation products available, the cost can range from several thousand dollars to several million. To get a more accurate answer, let’s dig a little deeper by breaking this down to product levels.

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Unlike competitors who often start with commercially available computer games and attempt to boost fidelity from there, at Frasca, we produce our own flight modeling for our Level D full-flight simulators. We take what we learn in developing this high-level modeling and apply it down the line of our simulators.

We achieve this by investing in high fidelity in three significant ways (more…)