Turkish flight professionals will continue to take courses from Canada-based International Test Pilot School (ITPS), the company’s business development manager told DefenseHere.
In an exclusive interview, Rene Changtin said the company has a long-standing relationship with the Turkish defense industry and the Turkish government.
“We want to maintain those relations,” said Changtin. “We have come here to see our friends and customers and hopefully to get new business.”
“We provide training for test pilots, flight test engineers and other flight test professionals at our facilities in London, Ontario,” he said, continued:
“But we also can provide the training in our customers’ countries or online as well.”
Pointing out the relations with Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI), Changtin explained that a lot of Turkish flight professionals were trained at ITPS over the last decade.
“TAI is a long-time customer of ours, so we have trained most of their flight test department, rotary-wing and fixed-wing a lot of their test pilots and flight test engineers were trained at ITPS since 2011-2012,” he said.
“We are always investing in new technology for our students to learn on the latest and greatest tools out there,” said Changtin. “We have purchased three Hawker Hunters and we are modifying one of them right now.”
He stated that large flight panel displays and hands-on-throttle-and-stick (HOTAS) will be installed in the aircraft to simulate fifth-generation aircraft systems.
“TAI test pilots will go back and probably fly the new TF [Turkish Fighter X project].”
“They will have trained on the systems that are similar to what they will see in that airplane,” he emphasized.
Touching on the fast-growing unmanned air vehicle (UAV) industry, Changtin also said that ITPS provides flight test training to the UAV operators as well.
“So, we do have expertise in the unmanned aircraft system flight testing courses as well, we are here to meet with as many of those companies as possible to offer them our services and our training,” he added.
