The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Simulator helps pilots to prepare
A specialist fighter jet simulator facility, where a cost-saving landing method was developed, is a “critical piece of the puzzle” for pilots preparing for flight trials off HMS Queen Elizabeth.
The £2 million facility built and run by BAE Systems at their site in Warton, Lancashire, enables engineers and pilots to experience flying and landing the F-35B Lightning II from the aircraft carrier.
RAF test pilot Squadron Leader Andy Edgell has been using the simulator, featuring a replica cockpit on a moving platform and domed screens, to train in ahead of the trials next year.
The 37-year-old, when quizzed on the facility’s importance, said it is a “critical piece of the puzzle” regarding their preparations.
“This simulator is by far the most realistic simulator that I have ever been in.
“You sometimes forget that it is not real,” he told the Press Association.
“Sometimes your heart rate increases on some of the manoeuvres that we are performing, some of the more challenging conditions that we are flying in.
“You genuinely feel as though you are in the real environment. Without the sim ... we would be going significantly less prepared.
“It gives us the data, the noughts and the ones, that are required to prove that what we are going to go and do is a sensible thing.”
The facility also features an accompanying FLYCO control room, which mirrors the one on the £3 billion warship, and also allows the ship’s landing signal officers team to be trained too.
BAE’S David Atkinson, an engineer working on the aircraft to ship integration, said the evidence gathered through their work is “critical” in gaining flight clearance for the trials off the ship.