Ukraine plans to purchase a Boeing flight simulator to train pilots in its higher educational institutions, Borys Kolesnikov, Vice-Prime Minister for the Infrastructure, announced the other day. “Ukraine cannot provide for a full-cycle training of pilots for civil medium-haul aircraft, such as the Boeing-737 or the A-320. So our goal is to train pilots among the non-fee-paying students so that people from ordinary families can have an opportunity to learn this,” the vice-premier said after visiting the Boeing Pilot Training Center in Miami, the US.
Kolesnikov added that training a pilot of this class requires tens of thousands of dollars and the world is short of the pilots of this category. Besides, purchasing this kind of flight simulators will also be solving a social problem because Ukrainian young people will be able to obtain, on a competitive basis, the profession of a Boeing-737 pilot. [It looks like the problem of employing these young people, on the training of which the state will be spending “tens of thousands of dollars” anywhere but not in Ukraine, is now of no concern. – Ed.] Besides, in Kolesnikov’s words, flight simulators will allow the Ukrainian pilots who have worked in civil aviation without having a specific category to upgrade their skills and military pilots to undergo conversion training.
“The Boeing-737 is the most widespread airplane. I think we will buy this plane’s simulator for a special pilot training technical center. We will also buy two computerized simulators at private funds’ expense. They will be installed at Kyiv National Aviation University and Donetsk National Technological University,” the infrastructure minister said.
Kolesnikov emphasized that Boeing would grant a considerable payment delay in this case, while prices for these training facilities vary from 8 to 20 million dollars. “I would like the computerized simulators to begin functioning in the two Ukrainian universities on September 1, 2013. And I hope the full-fledged new-generation Boeing-737 flight simulator will have been installed by September 1, 2014,” Kolesnikov stressed.
Incidentally, Kolesnikov proudly announced 18 months ago at a meting with aviation market experts (including heads of the Antonov aircraft company, Ukroboronprom, Leasingtechtrans, Ukraine’s Governmental Agency for Managing State-Run Property, and managers of Ukrainian airlines) at the Antonov aircraft company: “My mission is that Ukrainian air companies should operate the Ukrainian aviation equipment.” But let us cast sentiments aside. On the same day, Kolesnikov handed to Dmytro Kiva, President and General Designer of the Antonov company, a certificate for a national aviation equipment wonder – a brand-new comprehensive D-level simulator for the An-148, a new-generation passenger plane, which allows training pilots and simulating the actions of a crew in all the possible situations. This device, designed and manufactured by the company Antonov, was the first flight simulator of such a high level in the post-Soviet space. After a detailed check of the simulator’s capabilities, Yurii Miroshnykov, president of the International Airlines of Ukraine, noted that Antonov had made an international-level simulator. Moreover, this simulator costs dozens of times less than the one for Boeing-737. However, the state has never placed an order for making this simulator for a Ukrainian university.
As the Antonov press service told The Day, over more than 15 years that the company was designing comprehensive flight simulators, it never considered the question of supplying any flight simulators to any Ukrainian university. “Because they placed no orders,” we were told.
The Day was also told that the now available simulators are used to train the flight personnel of the air companies that operate An-series aircraft. In other words, it is first of all the companies that operate Boeing aircraft that are supposed to be interested in training their personnel on this company’s equipment. “Having a flight simulator is an indispensable condition for purchasing the aircraft,” the Antonov press service told The Day. “All over the world, pilots undergo training on flight simulators before steering a real aircraft. Besides, they do additional exercises as part of their flight practice.”
The Day has requested the State Aviation Service to furnish information on the number of Boeing-737 airplanes that various Ukrainian civil air companies operate now and on the degree to which national air companies are manned by pilots.
