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CASC expanding training capacity

By Lu Haoting (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-03-25 07:53

Li Jian (left), deputy director, CAAC, and Laurence Barron, Airbus china president in the A320 flight simulator.[Zhang Wei]

Airbus and China Aviation Supplies Holding Co (CASC) have expanded the capacity of their training joint venture by 25 percent to cater to the growing demand for pilots and maintenance engineers.

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The new facilities at Hua-Ou Aviation Training Center, a joint venture between the two companies, will host 20 percent more pilot trainees and 33 percent more engineering trainees each year, Airbus said yesterday.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), the industry regulator, yesterday put into service an Airbus A320 full flight simulator at the training center.

This is the first time that the CAAC has purchased its own full flight simulator. The simulator is owned by CAAC and will be operated by Hua-Ou. The new device, provided by Thales, will be used to train CAAC inspectors who are responsible for verifying that all the A320 simulators in use in the Chinese aviation industry meet regulatory standards.

"Safety has always been our top priority and qualified pilots and engineers are the key to ensuring safety in air traffic," said Li Jian, deputy director, CAAC.

The A320 family aircraft is Airbus' best-selling model and accounts for about 80 percent of the Airbus fleet in China.

Hua-Ou was opened in 1997 and is 50 percent owned by CASC, which handles most of China's aircraft imports. It is now equipped with three full flight simulators, two for the single-aisle A320 and the other for the long range A330/A340.

The training center will have a full-fledged workshop to provide training in aircraft composite materials' structural repair next year, said Raymond Lim, general manager, Hua-Ou.

Composite materials are playing an increasingly important role in aerospace components as they have better fatigue and corrosion resistance along with higher strength-weight ratios. The Boeing 787 is the first major aircraft to use composite materials for most of its construction. The A350, due to enter service in 2013, will be the first Airbus aircraft with fuselage and wing structures made primarily of composite materials.

China signed a letter of intent in 2006 to buy 20 A350s.

Alteon, a wholly-owned training subsidiary of Boeing, operates a flight training center in Shanghai in partnership with Shanghai Airlines. Alteon and Mil-Com Aerospace Pte from Singapore jointly own a company in Tianjin to provide maintenance training for the Boeing fleet in China.