The FTD’s I’ve seen aren’t generic rather have the same setup as a full-motion sim minus the visuals and movement. The one’s I’ve used even have the appropriate resistance on the flight controls as well as stick-shakers and pushers. They’re quite complex but offer a cheaper introduction to procedures and ergonomics for pilots instead of wasting thousands of dollars in a Level D sim.

True, most FTD’s are of the classic type with a real cockpit. But lately CAE and a few others have started offering generic FTD’s with displays showing the panels for quick conversion between types. Haven’t seen them for real myself but it sure sounds interesting, at least for me as an engineer…

The first FTD we had at our company was the actual cockpit from an earlier hull loss that they retrofitted. The fuselage was converted into a full motion cabin trainer for flight attendants and even includes a smoke machine for added realism.

Indeed so! Parts of the Bell 412 simulator here in Stockholm was once part of a real 412 that crashed in Canada years ago…

707 = aircraft with character. Its real pilots aircraft. If you respect her, she will get you home safely… but let your guard down and she’ll bite you.

Couldn’t have said it better myself. I had the fortune of trying Lufthansa’s 707 simulator in Frankfurt last year and if you didn’t handle this lady with respect, you’d know it immediately! The engines were more powerful than I could have imagined, and one had to think several steps ahead before doing anything. I’m in love with the 707 ever since…

Interesting that you note the nose is the best design ever.

Look how well it has been used.. 707,727 and 737…. apart from saving $$ in development, it also shows that the design was so efficient it never needed changing.

It is the sexiest nose ever! Although people I’ve spoken to who fly these things say that the wind noise is quite high, compared to other makes of aircraft. Too bad that Boeing now will remove the eyebrow windows from the 737. It is probably much better for flight crews who don’t want the sun in their eyes, and steep NDB approaches are uncommon these days, but it will change the look of that beautiful construction in a bad way… at least to an aviation romantic like me!

Another interesting tidbit is that the longest 737’s today are about as long as the 707-120 and 720 series. And yet the 707 looks huge in comparison, must be because of the deeper fuselage and enormous wings…

So there is no reason that an A320 sim would cost any different than a B737 sim with a few small exceptions. An argument that such training item cost would factor into a fleet purchase are unfounded.
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What ever happened the Singer-Link company? Did they get bought out by CAE or someone else? I have a memory that one of UAL’s 777 sims was built by Singer when I saw it back in ’98.

Might be better to start a separate simulator thread, but anyway…

In the area of Flight Training Devices (i e fixed-base simulators with or without visual systems), the latest devices now are generic with screens that can display several types, for example 737 or A320 or 777 or A340.

Link-Miles (later Singer Link) was formed in 1969 and bought by Thomson in 1990. Thomson was renamed Thales some years later, so in other words, Singer Link is now part of Thales – just like Hughes Rediffusion Simulation which was bought in 1994. There are still several simulators around who wear the Singer Link Miles name, but they may have been upgraded since built. SAS’ two MD-80 simulators, for example, were upgraded by CAE in the late 90s and are now hybrid Singer Link-CAE simulators supported by both CAE and Thales…

Training is a moot point as most operators own their own training operation so the only real difference in price will come down to the price of the simulator. I would venture a guess that an A320 sim and B737 sim cost about the same.

If we’re going to get into simulators…

Most simulators today are basically identical in construction, except for the cockpit and software data package (aircraft type specific).

There are two main producers of simulators; CAE of Montreal, Canada, and Thales Training & Simulation of Crawley, UK. CAE is by far the largest manufacturer. Thales’ simulators are sometimes a bit more sophisticated, with smarter technical solutions.

A major cost of a simulator is that of the visual system, which can be had in a variety of prices depending on how advanced it is and how large the field-of-view is. CAE offers their own systems Maxvue, Tropos and Medallion, of which Maxvue is the most common although Tropos and Medallion are gaining ground. Think of the difference between them like you compare graphic cards for your computer.

If one wants a superb visual system, one goes for Evans & Sutherland who does the best there is. They are very detailed and produce graphics of very high quality, but also cost far more than e g CAE’s Maxvue.

A normal visual system costs about €3-4 million. A complete simulator is about €8-11 depending on how advanced it is. The software data package alone costs about €1-2 – this package contains the entire flight software and is purchased from the airplane manufacturer.

Nowadays most flight training centres are no longer only used by the owning airline. At SAS Flight Academy, for example, about 35-50% of the training is done by external customers. There is an enormous competition between training centres and it didn’t exactly get better when the simulator manufacturer CAE started opening their own training centres around the world… Lufthansa Flight Training, British Airways Flight Training, Sabena Flight Academy and SAS Flight Academy are among the major training centres in Europe, but there are also now non-airline centres here and there – for example CAE Flight Training, GECAT and Alteon (formerly FlightSafetyBoeing).

CAE has centres in Maastricht, Moscow and Madrid, for example, and their position as both supplier of training themselves and manufacturer of simulators for their competitors have raised complaints from most airline-owned centres around the world.

That’s how this business is, folks…

It has been proven (no by me, but the likes of Whiskey Delta and sonnenflieger) that Pilot training and commonality mean squat if the tag price is low enough to outweigh those additional costs.

If your offered 200 planes for the price of 100…you’ll take it.. why? because it works out cheaper.

Confirmed. Commonality is very important, but if the savings or other advantages outweigh commonality, a mixed fleet might be the right way to go. That’s why you see some airlines flying both 737s and A321s, or MD-80s and A320s and so on.

To put it short, commonality is something to strive for but not at any cost.

Here here!

Thanks!