HATS off to Virtalis after contract win

ADVANCED visualisation company Virtalis has signed a contract with Thales Australia which, along with prime contractor, Boeing Defence Australia, will deliver the helicopter aircrew training system (HATS) to the Australian Defence Force.

The next generation of Australia’s Army and Navy helicopter pilots and aircrew will be trained using a combination of helicopters, Thales Full-Flight Simulators and a suite of other synthetic training devices.

Thales says it chose Virtalis, which has its UK head office at Sale in Cheshire, because it was seeking a commercial off the shelf (COTS) device that matched its voice marshalling and gunnery training simulator requirements closely and found it in Virtalis’ helicopter crew reality (HCR) product.
 
Michael Otero, Thales Australia’s programme manager for HATS, said, “We worked with Boeing Defence Australia to take the Commonwealth training requirements, allocate training competencies to different training devices and then to develop specific device requirements specifications.”

HCR provides helicopter crew with a virtual reality (VR) training environment in which to develop skills in team-wide communication during complex training missions.
 
HCR was originally developed over a decade ago for Britain’s Royal Air Force and the latest version is now also used by the British Army and Navy.

“Thales is well known for its use of simulators in the delivery of high quality training,” said Mr Otero. “As such, we will deliver an innovative and cost effective suite of devices that meet the HATS synthetic training requirements. We’ll be working closely with Virtalis to customise their HCR product for the required HATS training capability, including developing an Australian visual landscape.”

Virtalis will deliver their system early in 2017 with HATS programme acceptance about two years later.  The simulators will be installed at HMAS Albatross in Nowra, New South Wales.