On the 16th of December 2014, the Organisation for Joint Armament Cooperation (OCCAR) has awarded a contract to Thales, in partnership with Rheinmetall Defence Electronics (RDE), to supply or upgrade 20 Tiger combat helicopter simulators for the French and German armed forces.

Thales and its partner will upgrade 18 simulators to the latest Tiger helicopter standards. Eight Full Mission Simulators (FMS) and ten Cockpit Procedure Trainers (CPTs) will be upgraded at three training centres operated by French and German forces: the French-German Tiger aircrew training school (EFA) in Le Luc, France, the French Army’s 5th combat helicopter regiment in Pau and the Fritzlar 36th combat helicopter regiment in Germany.

Thales will also supply two new Tiger CPT simulators to train aircrews for France’s 1st combat helicopter regiment in Phalsbourg.

The upgrade and addition of new functionality for simulation of weapon systems, communications, datalinks, sensors (including the visual display of the TopOwl helmet-mounted sight and display system) and flight modelling will bring these training facilities into line with the latest versions of France’s Tiger HAD1 combat support variant and Germany’s UHT2 anti-tank / fire support variant.

The new simulators will incorporate the latest version of Thales’s Computer Generated Force software and the ThalesView image generator and database to provide an even more realistic tactical environment for aircrew training and allow forces to tailor their databases to deployment scenarios in actual theatres of operations.

The contract also includes support for these simulators for 10 years.

“This contract testifies to the successful cooperation between France, Germany, OCCAR, Thales and RDE under the Tiger aircrew training programme (TATM) and will further strengthen our partnership for the next 10 years,” says David Colliquet, Tiger Programme Manager at OCCAR.

“The new contract reflects OCCAR’s continued confidence in Thales. We will provide French and German Tiger aircrews with state-of-the-art training capabilities, in line with the latest versions of these helicopters and their evolving roles in today’s theatres of operations.” Jean-Jacques Guittard, Thales Vice President in charge of Training & Simulation business