CAE to develop RAAF C-130J fuselage trainer

CAE Australia has received a contract from Australia's Department of Defence to develop a C-130J Fuselage Cargo Compartment Trainer for the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), CAE announced on 6 April.

The C-130J Fuselage Trainer (FuT), which will be used to provide high-fidelity training to loadmasters, will be delivered to RAAF Base Richmond in the spring of 2018. As the prime contractor, CAE will be responsible for the overall design, development and delivery of the C-130J FuT.

The company will work with a team of subcontractors, including Airbus Defence & Space and Lockheed Martin, which will be responsible for hardware modifications to an ex-RAAF C-130H fuselage. This fuselage will serve as the physical platform for the FuT.

Air Commodore Richard Lennon, commander, air mobility group, RAAF, said: ‘The new fuselage trainer marks the first time that our C-130J loadmaster workforce will have a dedicated training device that accurately reflects the configuration of this aircraft.

‘The C-130J fuselage trainer will complement our C-130J full-mission flight simulator and other training devices, providing our C-130J workforce with immersive, full-crew mission training in a virtual environment.’