![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Sebastian1.jpg.jpg\")
Nordholz produces between 15 and 20 pilots annually across its helicopter and fixed-wing portfolio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe time when you had a lot of people to throw at a lot of systems are over,\u201d Keller said. \u201cWe never had that in Germany anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is a similar trend in other European countries, opening the possibility \u2014 or need \u2014 to join forces with other nations in filling training pipelines for similar aircraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Lynx simulator at Nordholz, for example, trains naval aircrews from Germany, Denmark and Portugal under an arrangement called the Joint Lynx Simulator Training Establishment. Housed in a sizable hall near the base entrance, the machine\u2019s hydraulic legs help simulate the movement of flight. But even without the feature turned on, the simulator offers a great degree of visual realism, much of which was derived from the gaming industry, explains the German Navy official in charge of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Next to the Lynx simulator, inside a large, black cube, sits an Sea King Mk41 simulator, upgraded last year with a new video-surround projection system and other features by Canadian-based contractor CAE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The German Navy\u2019s 21 Sea Kings are scheduled to leave service in 2023. With a service life of more than 40 years and counting, the helicopters are so old that officials said they routinely scour the globe \u2014 often in remote places \u2014 for spare parts to keep the aircraft flying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Next door outside, workers have begun clearing a soccer field-sized patch for what will be the site of a new NH90 simulator at Nordholz, a much-anticipated replacement helicopter for the German Navy\u2019s legacy fleet. Initially eyed for search-and-rescue missions, the NH90 Sea Lion, made by a European consortium of Airbus Helicopters, Leonardo and Fokker Aerostructures, could later pick up additional duties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The government is still collecting bids for the simulator contract, though officials said nothing will be built on the designated clearing here until after the envisioned October 2019 aircraft delivery date. That means naval pilot trainees will have to find yet another workaround.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Training and simulation companies are facing notably different market landscapes in the United States and in the more cash-strapped European militaries. In some ways, the sales proposition to the lavishly funded U.S. forces lies in the area of complementing and optimizing training programs. For many customers in Europe, including the German Navy, the fixation on simulation is more borne out of a lack of alternatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe volume in the states is much higher\u201d than in Europe, said Marc-Olivier Sabourin, CAE\u2019s vice president and general manager for Europe and Africa. \u201cBut in the end, the result of producing readily trained pilots is the same.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the case of the German Navy, personnel shortages are so acute that simulators contracted for high availability are seeing usage rates drop because there aren\u2019t enough crews available. The P-3C Orion cockpit simulator here, for example, initially was booked almost every day. Now there are about 10 uses per month, a Navy instructor told reporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Keller, there are only enough service members to fill five of the eight P-3C crews written into the base\u2019s table of organization. The rates are even worse for the other platforms: The Sea Lynx fleet needs 12 crews but has only four; Sea King crews are at six out of 15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, the simulation industry is shifting toward not just creating real-world experience but measuring student performance at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019ve reached a point where we can replicate flight 100 percent,\u201d Philippe Perey, international development director at CAE, told Defense News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The next step is automatically analyzing the data gleaned from students in simulators to derive an additional perspective about their performance besides a human\u2019s judgment. \u201cThere is quite a bit of variation even among instructors,\u201d Perey said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The jargon for this approach is \u201cclosed-loop training,\u201d and Perey was quick to point out that \u201cwe never override the instructor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, mining data about student decisions \u2014 the good and the bad \u2014 and adjusting syllabuses accordingly could unearth pilot weaknesses that humans don\u2019t have the brains to see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How do military aviators find the sweet spot between lifelike and actual life?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":51908,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":26,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[160,46,11,16,36,26,164],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3425],"class_list":["post-24028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-europe","category-global","category-naval","category-newsletters","category-training-sim","category-training-simulation-report"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"VCZLGPCBV5AH7LRSE5P7FEPRBM","arc_canonical_url":"\/training-sim\/2018\/05\/22\/german-navy-leans-heavy-on-simulation-pilot-training\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Cockpit_P-3C_simulator_LUBI0085.jpg.jpg\")