Thales Training & Simulation

Infobox_Company
company_name = Thales Training & Simulation
company_type = Public company foundation = 1938
industry = Aerospace
products = Full flight simulators, Commercial Aviation Training, Military Training
num_employees = ~2,000 worldwide
homepage = [http://www.thalesgroup.com Official site]

Thales Training & Simulation is an international company with over sixty years experience in simulation and training. It is part of the Thales group.

It is one of only a few companies worldwide that build full flight simulators for the airline and military training.

It has four main manufacturing plants; UK (Crawley, West Sussex) producing fixed wing aircraft simulators, France (Cergy-Pontoise) responsible for the helicopter and land vehicle simulation product range, Germany(Koblenz) where the small arms trainers are manufactured, and Australia (Sydney, NSW) which addresses Australasia requirements. In Addition the company has joint ventures and/or customer support hubs in the USA, Saudi Arabia, China, Thailand, etc.

Products and Services

Thales have build and now operate numerous types of aircraft (fixed wing and helicopter) simulators, including:

*Fixed based - No motion platform, normally housed in a dome, commonly military application. Full flight simulators can also be fixed based, these are generally basic training devices that have no visual and are control trainers only.

* Full flight simulators - A fully immersed simulation that has a motion platform, can be either hydraulic or electric (newer simulators)

* Military simulators - These can simulator parts of aircraft (fuselage), water based vehicles or ground systems, they are designed to simulate the look and/or feel of the environment.

* The range of services offered in support of military simulators now extends to both PFI and PPP contracts. Thales Training & Simulation provides the Synthetic training service for Tornado GR4 Royal Air Force Pilots and Navigators. A similar service is provided to train Army Air Corps Lynx Mk 7 & Mk 9 Pilots. A further Thales trainig service took over the operation of several existing Royal Air Force Simulator training centres, Nimrod MR Mk2, C130K, VC10, Tristar, Tucano, Jaguar, Tornado F3 and SeaKing Mk3, under a PPP arrangement. As the PFI model has been adopted outside the UK, Thales has is also part of a consortium to supply NH90 helicopter synthetic training to the German airforce under a PFI framework. Thales Training & Simulation is has a joint venture with Eurocopter running a synthetic helicopter training facility, Helisim.

* Thales also manufacture driver simulators for trucks (heavy goods vehicles), busses and military vehicles including tanks.

* The range of simulators extends to nuclear power plant simulators (for operator training) and small arms simulators for training army, police, etc

Company history

Rediffusion Simulation

The British company was incorporated as Redifon in 1946. In 1948 the company moved to the then new town of Crawley in West Sussex. In 1981 the parent company British Electric Traction changed the company name to Rediffusion Simulation Limited (RSL) to take advantage of the then familiar Rediffusion brand name.

In 1988 the company was bought by Hughes Aircraft and renamed Hughes Rediffusion Simulation (HRSL).

In 1994 the company was taken over by Thomson-CSF and merged with Link Miles and renamed Thomson Training & Simulation (TTSL).

Link Miles

In 1990 the company was taken over by Thomson-CSF, and when Thomson-CSF bought Hughes Redifussion in 1994 the companies were merged and based at the Manor Royal site at Crawley.

Wormald Technology

The simulation business of Wormald Technlogy of Australia was bought in 1998 and renamed Thales Training & Simulation Pty Ltd (TTSP).

Burtek

The American company was bought in 1979 by Thomson-CSF and later renamed Thomson Training & Simulation Inc.

Thales Training & Simulation

At the end of 2000 the company was renamed Thales Training & Simulation when the parent company re-branded using the Thales name.

External links

* [http://www.thalesgroup.com/training-simulation/home Official site]