Czech Airlines has chosen the supplier of a new cabin simulator for Airbus A320 aircraft and the supplier will be TFC GmbH Käufer of Germany. The simulator valued at CZK 52 million will allow the national air carrier to train cabin crews under real flight conditions, which will significantly improve the quality of training as required by European aviation regulations. The new simulator should be installed in the Czech Airlines Training Centre in Prague in September 2007.

The simulator will be an exact scale replica of the A320 fuselage. The interior will contain all the interior equipment of a real aircraft, including working doors and emergency exits, simulations of fire, smoke and loss of pressure. It will be mobile with a landscape visualisation outside the windows for very realistic training in both normal and emergency situations - for example flying through turbulence, emergency landings, aborted take-off etc.

TFC will develop and manufacture the new simulator at its head office near Düsseldorf in close co-operation with Czech Airlines so that it is perfectly adapted to the needs of CSA.

However, the new simulator is not only going to be used by Czech Airlines’ air crews. Just as with its other simulators, CSA plans to rent the free capacity of its top equipment to other interested air carriers, both domestic and international. The company even expects to use the simulator for the public; at the moment, CSA is opening fear of flying courses where flight simulation is included.

At present, Czech Airlines has two simulators for pilot training (Boeing 737 and ATR 42), one simulator for training cabin crews in standard and emergency situations and several special simulators - for instance for door opening training, cockpit pilot procedures and real fire extinguishing training in enclosed spaces. Currently, the installation of a new flight simulator for training A 320 pilots is being completed.

The Boeing 737 flight simulator has been in operation since June 2000. Since then, hundreds of pilots from CSA as well as foreign airlines have “flown” more than 32 thousand hours on it. It was estimated that the purchase price of CZK 250 million would be returned within eight years. Thanks to efficient use of the simulator, however, it has only taken six years.
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