Silverwater company helping our troops to fly

The pilots who rescued hundreds of Queenslanders during the floods and delivered food, medical equipment and sandbags, learnt to fly on simulators supplied or maintained by Silverwater company CAE.

Minister for Defence Materiel Jason Clare and Member for Reid John Murphy visited flight simulator manufacturer CAE today.

CAE supplies and/or maintains military flight simulators for:

• C130J and C130H (Hercules transports);
• Seahawk helicopters;
• Sea King helicopters; and
• Blackhawk helicopters.

“CAE provide a very important service to our Defence force,” Mr Clare said.

“The more training and practice our pilots receive, the better they will perform in real life situations.

“We saw evidence of this during the Queensland floods.

“The pilots flying our Black Hawk and Sea King helicopters flew more than 1,000 hours and rescued hundreds of people in terrible conditions.

“The training and practice they had received in the flight simulators maintained by CAE helped them do this dangerous and lifesaving job.”

“I met with our RAAF pilots who flew food and emergency equipment to Rockhampton a few weeks ago.

“Their job was to fly two to three sorties a day, working up to 16 hours a day. On one flight they were hit by lightning.

“They did an incredible job in dangerous conditions and these simulators meant they were well trained and prepared for it.”

Mr Murphy said CAE was a large employer in the local area.

“Not only does CAE provide a vital service to Defence, it is also important to the local area. CAE employs more than 80 people at their Silverwater site including engineers, technical officers and training professionals,” John Murphy said.

Director of Business Development for CAE, Andrew Rankin said simulation training provided a number of benefits.

“Simulation offers a range of benefits, including being environmentally friendly, reducing the overall cost of training, and saving wear and tear on aircraft,” Mr Rankin said.

“More importantly, however, simulator training helps prepare Defence for mission success, and there are some tasks which are just too dangerous to train anywhere but in a simulator.

“CAE is very proud to play a key role in training the men and women in the Australian Defence Force to be fully prepared for the challenges they face”

ENDS

© Scoop Media