How to buy simulators and training systems
A simulator is worth what its qualification lets you count. Buy the qualification level first and the visual system second.
This category covers flight simulators, flight training devices, maintenance trainers and the simulation software behind military training systems. The training provider that operates a simulator is under flight training, and the airframe being simulated is elsewhere entirely. The buyer's central question is the same for a civil operator and a defence programme: what will a regulator or a customer let this device be used to count?
Qualification is the product
Part 60 prescribes the rules governing the initial and continuing qualification and use of flight simulation training devices used to meet training, evaluation or flight experience requirements for flight crewmember certification or qualification, and it applies to each person using or applying to use one for those purposes.1 It carries the machinery a buyer should read before signing: qualification performance standards, a quality management system, sponsor responsibilities, objective data requirements, initial qualification, continuing qualification evaluations, modifications and the logging of discrepancies.1 Devices representing powered-lift carry additional requirements set out separately, which matters to anyone buying training capability for that class of aircraft.2 Ask for the qualification level being offered, in writing, and ask what training and checking events that level permits under your own approvals. Ask who the sponsor will be, because the sponsor carries obligations for the life of the device.
The data behind the device
A simulator is only as faithful as the aircraft data package behind it. Ask where the data comes from, whether it is the manufacturer's validation data, and what it costs. Ask what happens when the aircraft is modified: who updates the model, on what schedule, and at what price. Ask what the concurrency requirement is with your fleet configuration, because a device that no longer matches the aircraft becomes a device your regulator will not let you count. Ask about the visual database, the motion system maintenance, spares availability and the expected downtime per year.
Defence training systems are a different contract
Military training equipment can itself be a controlled article: the munitions list enumerates training equipment including instrumented targets, mockups of controlled articles used for maintenance or disposal training, and air combat manoeuvring instrumentation with its ground stations.3 Ask what the classification of the delivered system is and what a foreign sale would require. Ask who owns the simulation models and the scenario content, and what rights you receive in them. Federal award data is public and shows what a supplier has been contracted to deliver and at what scale, which is useful when a training system supplier's civil and defence claims are hard to separate.4
Questions that sort suppliers
Ask for the qualification level and the evaluation history of a device already in service. Ask what the annual continuing qualification effort costs in downtime. Ask what the data package licence covers and for how long. Ask what a fleet configuration change would cost to bring into the device.
Sources, in the order cited
- 1Electronic Code of Federal Regulations · 14 CFR Part 60, Flight Simulation Training Device Initial and Continuing Qualification and Use
- 2Electronic Code of Federal Regulations · 14 CFR Part 194, Powered-Lift Operations, including FSTD qualification
- 3Electronic Code of Federal Regulations · 22 CFR Part 121, The United States Munitions List
- 4United States Department of the Treasury · The USAspending API, federal award data