The first Loft Dynamics Airbus H125 virtual reality (VR) simulator in Alaska will be installed at Pathfinder Aviation’s base in Anchorage. The utility operator plans to launch training in the VR simulator in October, focusing on proficiency and mission training, and it will seek FAA Level 7 flight training device qualification.
With 22 helicopters flying more than 7,000 hours per year, Pathfinder finds it difficult to send pilots elsewhere for simulator training or to work around weather conditions to train in company helicopters. The VR simulator training will include inadvertent instrument meteorological condition encounters and avoidance; emergency procedures; external-load operations; normal and abnormal procedures; whiteout conditions; mountain, pinnacle, slope, and confined-site operations; and local site and terrain familiarization.
Plans call for training in the VR simulator to be for Pathfinder pilots, but the company will make the training available for other operators.
“In Alaska, we don’t get to choose when conditions become difficult, so our pilots need to be ready before they do,” said Pathfinder CEO Rogan Parker. “The value of having this simulator in Anchorage is repetition. We can put pilots through a whiteout, IIMC event or emergency, work through decision making, then run the scenario again. That kind of repetition is hard to achieve consistently in the aircraft, and it gives pilots the chance to build judgment before the stakes are real.”
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