West Africa’s First Flight Simulator Training Centre Opens Next Year InLagos.

A local Nigerian firm and a global aviation company based in Canada are partnering to open West and Central Africa’s first flight simulator training centre in Lagos next year.

Speaking in an exclusive interviews with The Guardian, Mr. Niyi Makanjuola, Chairman of Calverton Helicopters and Mr. Dean Fisher, Vice President and General Manager of CAE, confirmed that both companies have entered into an agreement that would put Nigeria in the lead in advanced training methods for African pilots and crewmembers.

While CAE, located in Montreal in the Canadian province of Quebec is renowned as the global aviation leader in flight simulation’s manufacture and training, Calverton Helicopters is a subsidiary of the local Nigerian aviation logistics company, Calverton Offshore Support Group Plc.

The groundbreaking move initiated by the locally owned Nigerian aviation company, is also the first Sub-Saharan Africa’s fully commercial flight simulator training and it would be opening latest by the end of next year at the Muritala Mohammed International Airport, according to Makanjuola and Fisher.

Flight simulation as a form of pilot training has been around since the 50s but no such training facility existed before in most of Sub-Saharan Africa except in Kenya and Ethiopia where the national airlines have training centres only for their pilots and crewmembers.

But in the agreement between Calverton and CAE, a six-pace full flight simulator will open next year in Nigeria starting with the initial purchase by Calverton of two simulators manufactured by CAE, which runs the largest installed base of flight simulations globally, training 100,000 pilots and crew annually.

The new Calverton flight simulator centre in Lagos will be equipped with a CAE 3000 Series AW 139 full-flight simulator, a CAE 7000XR Series Boeing 737 NG FFS, and two CAE Simfinity Integrated Procedures Trainers.