CAE’s many expanding competencies now include its leadership position in the evolving eVTOL training market. Chris Courtney, Director of Advanced Air Mobility for Civil Aviation at the company, said CAE has five training partnerships with eVTOL OEMs to include Joby, Jaunt, Vertical Aerospace, Volocopter and Beta.
“These are not ‘paper partnerships,’” the former career military helicopter pilot emphasized and revealed that for one company, CAE is manufacturing simulators, for several, it is developing courseware and curriculum. “For another company we’re their exclusive training provider globally. That company, Vertical Aerospace, is a traditional OEM, making and selling aircraft. We’re going to be providing simulators and delivering training out of our training centers and assisting with their customers where they are going to be selling to.”
For Volocopter, CAE is delivering global training for the OEM outside Europe. “We are making a new flight simulator for them, the CAE 700MXR and we’re working with Volocopter and with EASA to get the device qualified and get as many pilot training credits as we can get on this particular device.”
At this embryonic stage, CAE has an internal team with numerous capabilities, including a regulatory affairs specialist, engineers and others, to advance its eVTOL training portfolio.
As eVTOL community members accelerate the pace of first flights, pursue aircraft certification and other early life-cycle activities, CAE has hit a “sweet spot” of sorts in the timing of its eVTOL training focus. Courtney observed that training is not a pursuit once you certify an aircraft and explained, “This is something you do three years in advance of entering service – the time we traditionally start working on training with a traditional airplane or helicopter maker.”
While Courtney notes CAE has the reputation of a “credible training provider for more than 75 years,” it is also an early preferred simulation and training provider due to its global training center network. The existence of brick-and-mortar training centers dispels some of the early expectations that eVTOL training would be provided in large doses through distributed learning and like-instructional designs. “To be an ATO, there is an awful lot of rigor and scrutiny to be an authorized training provider,” the executive pointed out and added, “the infrastructure is part of it, the instructors are another, and then there are the flight training devices and curriculum that all have to come together.” And while Courtney acknowledged there will be some opportunities to conduct satellite-based or other distance-enabled learning, “you still have to follow the same process that applies for current ATOs.”
CAE notes its viability and attractiveness as an eVTOL training provider is also being established through its role as a training provider to legacy airlines beginning to acquire eVTOLs. “Almost 80 percent of those sales are already CAE existing customers,” the CAE executive said. “Whether it is Virgin, American, Gol, or others, “these airlines and operators are saying, ‘As you provide the Boeing 737 or whatever, we expect you to be there for us in the eVTOL space because it is different. We want to leverage your new and innovative ways to train pilots and train the individuals who are going to operate the eVTOLs that are going to be part of our brand.”
