U.S. Army Will Add UPRT to Fixed-Wing Training

The U.S. Army announced plans today to integrate Upset Prevention and Recovery Training (UPRT) into its fixed-wing flight training program beginning March 2017. The training will be conducted at CAE’s new Dothan Training Center, currently under construction, at the Dothan Regional Airport in Alabama.

Before that training can begin, however, approximately 18 CAE instructors must be trained to the latest UPRT standard. Two senior instructor pilots from Mesa, Arizona-based Aviation Performance Solutions (APS) will deliver the UPRT training to CAE personnel. APS instructors will APS-certify CAE instructors to deliver UPRT on Grob 120TP turboprop fully aerobatic training aircraft and any of four Beechcraft C-12 full-flight simulators. The C-12 is a military version of the Beech King Air 200.

The UPRT program will be part of the U.S. Army’s comprehensive fixed-wing flight-training program of academic, simulator and live flying to support the transition of Army rotary-wing aviators to fixed-wing aircraft, as well as the training of Army initial-entry fixed-wing students.

By spool-up time next year, APS expects six instructors to be ready to teach in the Grob, with another dozen slated for the C-12. Two of the C-12 FFSs feature CAE's roll-on/roll-off (RORO) cockpit design, enabling cockpits representing various aircraft types to be used in the full-flight simulator. The CAE-built C-12 simulators also integrate CAE’s new UPRT Instructor Operating Station (IOS) enhancement, offering instructor technology jointly developed by CAE and APS, to comprehensively analyze airplane upset events in real time, including the recording of those UPRT events for post-flight debriefing.