Helisim, the way to go to school; our What's Up feature in this issue looks at a helicopter system that is not intended to go up anywhere except in business terms. With a strong collective thrust from Eurocopter, Thales and Defence Conseil International the new Helisim company of Marignane in southern France was born almost with a silver spoon on 21 February 2002. (What's Up?).

With a view to providing a full helicopter flight training service for both the civilian and military markets, Helisim benefits not only from a strong -- and very necessary -- financial backing, but also from an uncommon amalgamation of technical expertise. Indeed, who better than Eurocopter to provide the skeleton and anthropometrical data that will result in a simulator system expected to perfectly mimic its own real helicopters, or Thales (merging the talents from both former Thomson and Dassault Electronique) bringing the skills to "polygonate" a realistic bit-generated environment and Defence Conseil International with the diplomatic and financial pull to crystallize many a foreign military helicopter pilot training project into a viable package?

The Helisim centre also possesses two physical assets. One, as seen above, is geographical, being located as it is in Southern France on so mythical a Mediterranean coast that even the French think twice about travelling elsewhere when going on holiday. The other is that it is located literally across the Eurocopter factory personnel car park, only yards away from those who design, produce and maintain the very real aircraft being synthesised.

On 21 February, when the scissors of Jean-Franqois Bigay (Eurocopter), G. Delavaque (Thales) and Yves Michot (DCI) cut the inaugural ribbon in nanosecond-precise unison under the astonished gaze of Helisim's own helmsman G. Dabadie, the huge hall housed only one of the massive legged cocoons. This isolation will not last long though as a second is expected to anchor its sturdy six degree of freedom struts nearby in mid-2003. Naturally each one of the simulators is of modular design, a term that illustrates the fact that each can be reconfigured to produce a faithful interpretation of the behaviour -- and misbehaviour of course -- generated by four different whirly birds, namely the Cougar, Cougar Mk 2, Panther and EC155. Reconfiguration basically means the outright substitution of one complete helicopter nose section for another, typically in two hours. Helisim is talking big business and big helicopters; and unsurprisingly the NH90 will soon join the flight; and so will eventually a third simulator cabin. However, before this happens, two cabins will be able, by mid-2003, to offer the 10,000 hours of training per year the financial break-even point commands, although the capacity can be stretched out to 14,000 hours. Lease, like aircraft, can be dry or wet.

Simulators such as Helisim's cut down the cost of one hour's flight by 30 per cent and are always ready to fly whatever the weather. They also have the potential to take over 80 per cent of the training time normally carried out on an aircraft. With the trend for private financed initiatives launched a few years ago by the British Ministry of Defence, which will no doubt have a snowball effect, Helisim may have chosen the right moment to emerge as a private service provider. As a matter of fact, the French company already has a contract in hand to provide 150 flight hours to the Dutch Army's Cougar Mk 2 pilots. Similar deals were soon after clenched elsewhere, notably in South America.

Looking at potential markets, it is interesting to note that the four aircraft types simulated here are representative of no less than 1000 helicopters currently in active service. To provide a yardstick in terms of costs involved, one hour in one of these massive Helisim simulators actually costs more than one hour of real flight in an EC 120 light helicopter.

As seen above, the simulators offer a six degree of freedom motion (and a quite ample one at that), but also a 200 x 60-degree collimated field of view. The visuals are helicopter specific, which means that depending on the required circumstances dust, spray or snow can be seen lifting off by the downwash, wherever applicable. A particular feature is worthy of notice: Helisim's simulators can be used for night vision goggle qualification rating.