Flight Simulator Engineering & Maintenance Conference 2009

For the first time, FSEMC took place in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, with EGYPTAIR hosting the 2009 event in Cairo

CAT MAGAZINE • ISSUE 6/2009:

Despite the absence of some familiar faces from North America, numbers were more than made up by delegates from both the MENA region and further afield. Conference chair, Mike Jackson of Fedex, was pleased by the attendance, which continued to encourage a lot of networking and problem sharing by engineers with their peer group – very much in the tradition of FSEMC.

While there were many presubmitted technical issues to be discussed and resolved, there was particular interest in what Boeing had to say about developments in data licensing and IPR issues. The subject had generated considerable anxiety in the training industry, and in response to a question from Thales, Louis Valdez of Boeing said that the Boeing view was that it was just clarifying existing principles of charges.

It is entirely legitimate to recover costs of development from businesses, which were using the data to derive revenue. From now on this would not apply to an airline, which buys an FSTD to exclusively train its own pilots. But a charge of something like 15% would be levied on any third party training. Although this action would not beetrospective there was no indication as to whether this charge would apply to upgrades.

Valdez recognised that this would inevitably mean an increase in FSTD prices, but he dismissed concerns that such an effect could impact on safety.

Naturally safety is paramount, but it is the responsibility of airlines and regulators to ensure safety, and therefore safety is not linked to commercial issues involving training tools. It seems highly likely that this topic will generate considerable debate in the near future.
Highlights