The Helicopter Podcast

Episode #112 - VR meets reality: Fabi Riesen, CEO of Loft Dynamics - The Helicopter Podcast

• Halsey Schider • Episode 112

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Welcome to The Helicopter Podcast, brought to you by Vertical HeliCASTS!

In this episode, host Halsey Schider dives into the transformative world of aviation simulation with Fabi Riesen, CEO of Loft Dynamics. Fabi and his team at Loft Dynamics are revolutionizing how pilots train, bringing a fresh, immersive approach to flight simulation that leverages cutting-edge virtual reality (VR) technology. 

The conversation begins with Fabi sharing his early fascination with technology and how a simple VR headset sparked the idea that would eventually lead to Loft Dynamics. Fueled by his passion for innovation, Fabi and his team seized the unique challenges of the COVID-19 era, using the time to go full force into developing advanced, immersive simulators that have now become some of the most realistic training tools in the industry.

Loft Dynamics has recently made headlines with its impressive expansion and new partnerships, including collaborations aimed at enhancing global pilot training and meeting the increasing demand for qualified pilots worldwide. Their simulators, praised for realism and efficiency, offer an eco-friendly, cost-effective alternative to traditional training, helping to reduce emissions and address critical gaps in training resources. 

Throughout this insightful discussion, Halsey and Fabi explore Loft Dynamics’ mission to make aviation safer, more accessible, and responsive to the needs of a rapidly evolving industry. They discuss the immense impact these VR-based simulators could have, from cutting operational costs for training providers to offering pilots more frequent, hands-on practice in scenarios that challenge their skills and judgment.

Tune in to hear Fabi’s inspiring journey and learn about the game-changing advancements Loft Dynamics is bringing to aviation. This episode offers an exciting glimpse into the future of flight training, where VR meets reality, and innovation is paving the way for a new era in pilot education. Don’t miss this enlightening episode of The Helicopter Podcast!

Thank you to our sponsors Hillsboro Heli Academy, Precision Aviation Group and Sellacopter.

Halsey J Schider (00:37.366)
All right guys, it's Halsey Shetter with the Helicopter podcast. And we are here in Amsterdam, European Roaders. It's day number one. Obviously the show's not actually gonna release today. But we're just excited to be here, the energy. I typically podcast from my upstairs office. And so it's a little bit different to be able to look out and see all the people and just the hustle, the bustle, the excitement. And I couldn't think of a better first guess

then Fabi here with Loft Dynamics, the CEO. Loft is doing incredible things. In fact, I'm actually gonna be shooting some content today. I'm gonna be flying you guys a simulator. Now I haven't flown for a long time, so I'm a little nervous, but Fabi, welcome to the Helicopter Podcast. Welcome to European Roaders 2024. How are you? Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot for having me on your show. Yeah, I'm doing great. mean, it's always a highlight to be at the big trade show here.

and appreciate for taking the time to end your interest in Loft Dynamics. Yeah, so we actually recently podcasted with Woody, who's I think on the US base side. Yes. And he was just so excited about Loft and so excited about what you guys are doing. And something that we're trying to do here specifically this week, of course, being in Europe, it's really highlighting and talking to the individuals like yourself that are pushing the European

You know market and and you have a presence here you started here. So just give me a little bit of background on you Your your your history and helicopters and just kind of the the million-mile view of Fabi. Yes. Thanks. Yeah, so I'm already an older rabbit in the whole game So way over 50 years, but passion started in kindergarten for aviation

With glasses my career ended up as an engineer. So I did work for several years as an engineer in software engineering and networking. then aviation passion, so I got my PPL in fixed wing back in 1999. hunting around in the Swiss Alps and so on, so all great. Awesome. Then in 2013,

Halsey J Schider (02:55.47)
I got my first virtual reality headset. So you can imagine myself, I went through all the education and so on as a private pilot only, but I mean, simulator was there as well, having engineering background and so on. So getting out of the sudden a VR headset, it was like the SDK-1 from Oculus. Horrible quality if you compare it to today. But out of the sudden, it was possible to have a stereoscopic view.

What does it mean? It's not only 360 degrees, but you could really go out and watch down in which direction the landing T is showing. So cool. And you were able to charge the altitude in a flare and so on because it was finally like in real life. And I was thinking that could be cool to use that in the context of a fly simulator. And I started to experiment in the living room. Interesting.

Actually, the very first prototype was in the living room at home with motion and everything. are still some oil remains on the floor and so on that time. there was... You must have a very understanding wife. Yeah, yeah. So that's correct. I'm blessed to have that. The biggest trick, I mean, everyone who is now in the show and want to do the same. mean, get your kids involved. Totally. And then make a family project.

You can do it in the living room. No one is worried about it. It's just a family project. love that. So, you essentially you were in kind of the engineering space. You were passionate about aviation. From putting on that first VR headset to actually building your first simulator in your living room, what kind of time frame are we looking at? Was it an immediate light bulb or did it take some time? Well, I mean, for the first prototype it was...

quite straightforward, but I mean, was of course very catastrophic. He never thought about qualifying it or not. So at a certain moment as already an old engineer at the time, I reached out to colleagues at university, like the fresh brains and the clever guys, and we started to work together on it more from a passion point of view, just having the ambition to build the world's greatest simulator in aviation. And that said,

Halsey J Schider (05:16.334)
we started to optimize it, we tried it in fixed swing, in helicopter and so on and then the big change was, mean, we never thought about that. Back in 2018, I got a call on my mobile from IAZA. Like the aviation authority and then think about the Swiss boy gets called from IAZA. they actually mentioned that they saw a YouTube video and they are interested to see whether they can visit us. And I saw this prank.

I told them how could it be? What I actually did is I mentioned that he sent me an email. Half an hour later I got a super serious email. they sent their guys. The part I didn't know is this was the year where EASA came out with the road to craft safety roadmap, which was a very long study to understand why the helicopter accidents are still increasing.

I mean, know, one fatal accident per week, just in Europe. That's crazy. Almost every third is happening during training and checking. So think about that. You go and train and check and you're be safe, but you die. you have an accident. That basically brought them to the conclusion, OK, I mean, we need to get, that's something we can get rid of because this is something they are forcing to do.

They were looking why it's not done on simulators and they ended up it's not available and accessible and not realistic enough and far away too expensive. So by being so many innovation approach from EASA which is really appreciated I mean they found us and then in 2019 we've been working on a collaboration partnership with EASA to figure out how can we qualify such a device.

So by end of 2019, we found a way, a lot of work to do. this is where I got the guys together. This is where we really started to develop. Begin of 2020, we had the crew together and there was COVID measures. Bad timing. Well, it was actually quite cool because we just relocated our home address to the company. OK. And that means we...

Halsey J Schider (07:35.662)
could work from home. Going in quarantine, go home. So the whole team was there. So we were really able to develop the whole time. Which got quite a cool family. Yeah, talk about like building a culture. Exactly, and helping each other. I mean, well, it's nothing else to do than just developing. And this is where we were actually one year earlier than expected in 2021. That's incredible. We got the first.

FSTD qualified virtual reality technology. It's really funny because you know COVID for so many people was a lot of things. Not good for some, okay for others. For me, I had actually just quit my flying jobs. I have a flying background, I flew helicopters for 15 years or so and I started selling helicopters about six, seven years ago and right before COVID happened I'm like you know what I'm gonna commit going 100 % into just selling.

and quit my job, had some savings, wasn't really bringing in a ton of money on the sales side, and then COVID happened. And I'm like, no. But it actually worked out great because during that time there was kind of a panic sell. So a lot of people sold, and I got to take advantage of helping those individuals sell. And then on the buy side, it got really good because the interest rates dropped. mean, was very actually a good market during that time.

For me, COVID was a positive experience. It wasn't horrible. And it sounds like it was kind of an interesting and good time for you guys as well. Yeah. I mean, to be clear, it was not really positive. mean, it could have been much easier. I think taking the existing regulation, which has been put in place, reading them carefully and make the best out of it, that's basically the key to success.

Yeah, reading the regulation, you need to stay at home, so just move your home address. and we did actually same with FIASA. mean, there are a lot of rumors what you can't do it and why, but if you go to the regulation and you read them carefully, you just need to fulfill them. And this is the way how we were able to qualify. And by still today, I mean, we are the world's only one having the qualification. It's incredible. Meanwhile, also the FAE qualification, also the only one.

Halsey J Schider (09:57.642)
And I mean, this is basically one of the key things. I to have a successful device, I mean, more realistic, affordable, qualified, available and accessible, having a high density of simulators so pilots can train everywhere, wherever they are. Yeah, so forgive me again, I'm a little ignorant in the simulator space, to be honest. It's not something I'm an expert in by any means. When I think of simulators, I'm thinking of these giant units that look like...

kind of like a spacecraft. And they cost millions and millions of dollars. And some of them have motion, and it's pretty realistic. My simulator experience was with an air medical company I worked for. And it was like a 270 screen, or 180, I guess. I don't remember what it was. But it wasn't full motion or anything. And it was OK. It was good for procedural, practicing inadvertent IMC and just

know, moving around and kind of just re-equating yourself. That's kind of been my experience. So with Loft and the now certifications that you guys have, what does your guys' simulator look like compared to what we're used to?

Halsey J Schider (11:14.03)
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Halsey J Schider (11:31.822)
It's a very good point and actually we have a loft suite which exists out of three things. So we have a home training kit which is just a VR headset and you can do all your procedures at home. That's crazy. So you see virtually and you can do all your procedures and this is all connected to cloud. That's the second piece and the third is what you mentioned is like the simulators and there we only have two types, single seat to one seat, highest fidelity. So there is no way anymore where you go from

From Cardboard Trainer to Desktop Trainer to Touchscreen Trainer to an AATD or FMPT to an FTD to a full-flying simulator. We just have highest fidelity, two types and that's it. So very simple. All connected to the cloud to do a lot of stuff I will mention afterwards. The point is to get highest fidelity, no doubts, motion is important.

So let's maybe quickly talk on the motion. There are six degrees of freedom, like you have the three linear motions and then you have the roll. And there are like six degrees of freedom. And this is what you mentioned on those hexapod, those gigantic domes. We have same, we have also six degrees of freedom. But the difference is it's not so huge. We have...

really great range but the beauty is that with all the roll motions, mean all the rolls and so on, we are much closer to the real aircraft. So like if you take a scroll in H125 or AS350, or whatever you want to call it, and you make a partial landing, you have a roll rate up to 120 degrees per second. So the velocity is like 120 degrees. A full flight simulator, level D.

only requires up to 25 degrees per second. Really? So it's up to five times too slow to be realistic to the flight model. This is what the pilot makes sick. This is where pilot needs to learn to fly. And I'm talking not about those without motion. I'm talking about the highest class. Like the highest top dog. So now the question is,

Halsey J Schider (13:47.986)
Why can't we make these moving faster? Think about it. You have a 10 tons machine and you need to move it five to seven days. It's going, I mean the building, we fall apart. Now the second thing is you need to have a cockpit and you need to feel all the buttons, the touch, the rotary knobs, the controls. We have that. That's the unique part. We are combining the haptic with virtual reality. That's incredible.

I will come to that afterwards. then the third thing is having the visual system. And think about you have a dome and I mean everyone at home can do that very easily. If you have a dome projection, it's gigantic, several meters diameter. And because it's so gigantic, you need to move a house. Yeah, it's huge. And now that's projected. If it's projected...

Nothing moves if you move your head. Because if you sit in front of the TV, if you sit in front of a table, you move your head a little bit, you see that the table or whatever is moving in front of the background. If it's projected, it's not happening. So that said, the pilots using those level D simulators actually miss the most important one is the visual cue. It's crazy. It's simply wrong. And that's wild that that's been the standard though.

Yeah, I mean there was nothing else there and I mean actually the virtual reality technology for is is 34 years old. That's crazy. mean not now but no one has taken it and brought it into a qualified FSTD, the full flight simulator, flight simulator training device and that's basically what we need. Now once you have that on and you have this full immersion the beauty is from a visual system point of view we can make night and then everything is dark.

your skin is dark. We can simulate night vision goggles. You need to try it. You get it down, then you have the night vision goggles. So you can really play. You see the cockpit in green. You see everything in green. You can do a full simulation with that. You can turn on the map light. I mean, you really need to work like in you're getting the feedback? Exactly, yeah. So we have all the knobs. mean, everything you can touch is there.

Halsey J Schider (16:06.274)
Those things you can't touch, we just have visual. For example, if you have a mirror outside, I mean, it's not there, but you see it. see it. Yeah. And if you have a button or a touch or you have your EVE light back, that's all there and you really feel it. And what you basically do is we take all that information and we render it in virtual reality with the right light, ambience light, everything.

So the pilots have the full experience there. That's incredible. And that's something you can't do in the traditional simulators. not. So then the second challenge, if you are wearing virtual reality headset, is you don't see yourself. And this is technology, we call it post tracking. We developed it in-house. And you don't need any gloves, no sensors, nothing. You just go there. And then the system builds a real-time skeleton with some AI behind.

And with the real-time skeleton, it's so exact that you find the buttons and the knobs within less than one millimeter. Wow. So basically, with the skeleton, we are animating an avatar. Yeah, it's it's creating you. It's creating you, and it's full digitized, so you have an avatar. And then you see yourself, you can touch the buttons and the knobs. It's incredible. It works perfectly.

And now that combination with a very air child motion, I mean, it's giving you the best possibility of what you ever had in a fly simulator. Some of the things that I found fascinating when I was doing some research about chatting with you today is the applications. You know, when I think of simulator, what I actually really think about is an airline pilot. I think of they get in their big sim, they do their airline pilot stuff. For helicopters, it's just not

quite, at least from my experience, there was never a big emphasis. And reading your guys' website, looking at doing external load operations and things like that, is that actually happening with Loft? You guys are able to simulate that and have it be realistic? Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. mean, all the special operation, I mean, you won't be able to make vertical reference flying if the motion is too slow plus.

Halsey J Schider (18:26.19)
if you even don't see anything, you want to help you out. Then certain guys, they start adding monitors there. But if you have a monitor there and you move your head, the picture is not moving. It's not correct. Yeah, and we implemented a sling load module. And that's even qualified not only by EASA, also by FAA. So you can now do the entire sling load operation training in a very safe way. And then you can do things.

you must not do anything about the flying structure. If you do vertical reference of line structure, has no chance to see it. It's easy to see. So very safe from that point of view. What is the feedback that you're getting from the different sectors that are using your guys' simulation? Yeah, so mean, in general, I'm only talking to helicopter right now because we step now in fixed wing as well.

But in helicopter world, mean, helicopter pilots are super skeptical towards simulators. Of course. And I couldn't agree more. You know, I'm currently doing the transition from fixed wing to helicopter. I have now my six hours on the squirrel. We've got to get you more. Yeah, definitely. But the point is, the point is, if you are forced to use a simulator, it's not going to work. And this is where we benchmarked ourselves, if the helicopter pilot

to satisfy them and not to satisfy the regulations. Afterwards, to satisfy the regulations. start with the guys flying. Exactly. And then we had to do a lot of changes. Like I mentioned, roll rate on a motion platform, the specifications are simply too lazy, mean, too open, had to be narrowed down. Another one is visual systemize, mean, using the virtual reality to be able to do vertical reference. And the third one is the control input.

Like on a full fly level D simulator, if you have control input, you must not exceed 100 milliseconds to feel it. That's not good enough. It's not. You won't be able to make it. Yeah. So we had to go down to the 48 milliseconds and so on. So a lot of work is there. And this is because we have everything in-house. And then you have engineers who they know every algorithm. They can tune it until we actually meet. guys are way smarter than me.

Halsey J Schider (20:49.322)
Actually, you know, I used to be an engineer, getting the young guys, the younger guys in contact, I mean, they pushed me to the docks. They're incredible. They're the PowerPoint slides here. Yeah, it's about the team, right? Exactly. It's about having the right people. Now, this is, you know, coming to you, you have six hours in the helicopter. I'm guessing you have a lot of simulator time in the helicopter, am I correct? Well, I mean...

more and more I have less and less time, given that I'm stepping in all directions. Of course I do have quite some testing, but it's a lot of small tests, quickly tests, something for five minutes and so on. But the beauty is, mean, on our simulator, you get in your train, if you can fly it, you go in the helicopter and you fly. That's what I'm curious about. if, say, I get my wife in the simulator, she doesn't fly helicopters.

I don't think she would be great at it too. And she would tell me that. She's not into it. Well, I mean, yeah. So what, I mean, one thing is the training method. We come to that. We've learned to win afterwards. But the other thing is we made that experiment already a couple of times. Back in 2021, we had 33 students never being in a helicopter. We trained them in the average 10 and a half hours, full PPL.

And then the flight examiner from EASA picked up pilot, checked out in the morning on the simulator with all the marks for the full PPL and in the afternoon they went on the real helicopter.

Really? And then on the real helicopter doing same to see how the transfer is. it was really, really linear. So if someone had a level three for a specific maneuver on the simulator, it was also level three in the real helicopter. That's crazy. was throughout the whole band. I mean, think about that. We had 33 students being first time in helicopter. They were able to go in, do the full startup, getting it in hover, making hover check, making hover exercises, making a fly out.

Halsey J Schider (22:55.66)
flying a circuit, and then even cooler, they went up into flight doing auto rotation in the first 45 minutes. That's insane. With hands off from a flight instructor, all of that. That's incredible. I mean, to me, that's the proof. I couldn't agree more. It's one thing for someone like me, and again, I'm excited to go today. I'm a little...

I'm a little nervous actually because I haven't flown for a long time. Don't be worried. This is basically the training method. The last thing I would like to mention is we digitized the entire body from the pilot that the pilot can see him or herself to operate the cockpit. But with that, we have now a possibility to create a full digital twin of a training session. So what we have now is that the flight instructor goes on the simulator and teaches like he would have a student there.

Everything gets recorded. That's crazy. So it gets recorded, the motions, the environment, with the weather, with the clouds, the whole cockpit thing, the controls, the buttons and so on, the voice. And afterwards it gets packed in a lesson. And this lesson gets immediately pushed out to all the 50 simulators. It's crazy. So every student can hop on the simulator, the session gets replaced, and they virtually sit with the flight instructor in the cockpit. They see him as an avatar.

you will hear and get the lesson to feel the controls like they are on dual controls and so on. I mean, if you even feel the feet. Yes. Yeah. So what you can do today is if you go on the booth, you can go there and ask for the auto rotation demo from Jan. So Jan is the chief pilot at AirBasilic. So you will get a lesson from Jan digitized on a loft simulator how the OEM

is demonstrating the perfect auto rotation. So you can fly with him, you can learn. That's one thing, then the next thing is based on the data. You can do it by yourself and the system tells you where you differ to the good. And then it shows you where you should focus next. So it's very efficient to do so. It's crazy. To me, talking to you, this seems like this is the future and it's here now. Like this seems like it's actually going to revolutionize

Halsey J Schider (25:17.794)
the industry for positive. I mean, we've talked for years and years and years about safety and you said an accident per week. I mean, that's crazy. It's a crazy high statistic. I love helicopters. I love being here. I love the people. So much so that I don't want bad things to happen, right? And they continue to happen. How hopeful are you that the industry will continue to embrace companies like you that are doing this type of simulation?

And that this just becomes like a standard. Every flight school, every operator. I mean, because that's the other thing. I don't know how much was a simulator in the past, like a big full motion? Around 20 million. $20 million. So I don't have $20 million. And I don't think a lot of people do. And they don't want to have wrong visual system in slow motion. And you're paying $20 million for not a perfect product, right? And so I guess, you know...

It seems like the industry is going to really catch on to this. Is that the vibe? Is that the excitement that you guys are feeling?

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Just call 800-537-2778. Precision Aviation Group. Others sell parts. We sell support. Yeah, you know, I mean, we were lucky to make a partnership back in 2022 with a helicopter unit from Airbus Helicopters. And there are now much more OEMs where we're starting to partner because, know, Loft is not providing the final training. We live up to training.

Halsey J Schider (27:20.44)
to the experts, to the operators, to the flight schools, the ATOs, to the airliners. But we provide them the tools to do that very, very efficient, to make faster, safe pilots. And we are collaborating with our platform with the OEMs. So we basically are able, with the platform, to introduce standardization, entire evidence-based training. That's all built in.

And this is definitely the new way and the standard way how to do the training and how to be efficient and safe. In regards of every third accident, we could remove that today with one snip because you know AR has already accepted on our simulator.

to do the checks also on it, type ratings and all that part, like on a level D. It's crazy. So from that point of view, it's possible today and everyone should do it just to get rid of that. mean, you can make a full touchdown auto rotation. It's insane. And there is no reason. The insurance are very interested in that as well. mean, why risking the helicopter on that?

And it's possible. mean, as you mentioned, it's not an idea. The future is here today. And we've that loft twin where we can digitize the lessons. You can introduce standardization in your organization. You can learn from the OEM. You can exchange the lessons between organizations. I mean, it's really the nicest thing. Yeah, it's incredible. And I think what people sometimes forget, like if you're listening to the podcast right now and you're training.

Obviously, you're very in training right now. You're doing autos every day. You're doing off airports. That's training. But when you become a commercial, real-life pilot in the industry, you're not doing that. You're typically flying A to B. Maybe you're doing some external load or utility, whatever the mission is. But you're not flying maneuvers. You're not doing auto rotations. You're not sharpening the knife. And so to me, I think of it like, man, if I'm an operator,

Halsey J Schider (29:29.216)
even an air medical operator, utility, if I had a training tool where my pilots could come in quarterly or every two weeks or every week even and go and just fly the simulator and get training with a virtual instructor doing auto rotations and practicing those emergency procedures in Invert and IMC, I mean to me that, I don't know what the statistics are but that kills a lot of people. Being able to become proficient in that, mean.

What an incredible tool. It just seems like a no-brainer to me. Yeah, and I mean, right now it's possible because it's not so huge anymore. mean, even to our seat, you don't need anymore the three-story building. mean, can you imagine? So the availability and accessibility from FSCDs is now possible. I mean, before, think about like Ersamad somewhere in the valley.

If they would have built this huge building, no one could see the Matterhorn anymore. takes the view away. then, I mean, the affordability is the other one. And now we have already today, I mean, more than 17 times about of training possibilities than it was back in 2022. still increasing. And I mean, this is where our passion is, because if...

training becomes state of the art. mean that's exactly what you believe is the right thing to do. And then the second important point in that is if you train and you have everything data driven, can spot on where the workload is highest. We have so many capabilities with eye tracking, stress measure, workload measure and so on.

So we can spot on the maneuvers where even an experienced pilot is made challenged. Totally. And so on. So we can do all the malfunctions you can never do on a real helicopter. And that's the truth, right? Because in my day, learning, you could simulate a lot of things in the aircraft, but not really, right? You're not actually going out and doing a tail rotor failure or a true stuck pedal. And because of that, like stuck pedal, that's a good example. I don't know how common actually having a stuck pedal is, but it happens.

Halsey J Schider (31:43.116)
We train for it, but nobody knows it well enough to actually train it well. So like any time that I've actually ever flown with an instructor pilot that's teaching stuck pedal, it's not good. It's because they're not comfortable because they don't do it all the time and it's uncomfortable. And I feel like, you know, in a simulator, you can do stuck pedal and tail rotor failure. You can actually give people that training. Right. Growing up, I played sports. I was a football player, American football, even though I'm not very big.

And we always talked about practice like you play, right? And it's like in aviation, we haven't done that because it's dangerous. And so to me, I think of this type of simulation and I think it's, honestly, a hundred percent think it's going to change the industry for the better, a hundred percent. no, I mean, that's why we are here. I mean, this is why out of a sudden of a living room project, have the love dynamics. how fast you've moved. How do you,

When you're telling me all these things that you're doing right now, I'm thinking like every other tech company that takes 10 plus years to get a viable product, they're fund it, fund it, fund it, fund it. You started in 2019, this project? mean, we're going on five years. That's nothing. Yeah. mean, first of all, it's all the team behind.

Everyone is having the passion to get the world's best simulator out and that's very key and then now you mentioned about a small fast tech company We we don't have any obligations to maintain the old business We don't have obligations to have the supplier or they'll we just can do it and we have everything in house So where the graphic engine is even in house all the stuff. That's why we can do things very fast

And I mean, fantastic team behind. That's basically the key thing. So yeah, that's how we were able to do it. And then working close together not with only the customer. Initially, was simulator centers to be the customer. We work straight with the user, the pilots. If they are happy, all the rest just works. Yeah, it all works. Something that I always felt that was really helpful when I was instructing was this idea of scenario-based training, giving my student a mission. Hey, you know, for...

Halsey J Schider (34:04.942)
for a commercial helicopter student, that mission wasn't very complex. was, hey, we're gonna fly over and we're taking pictures of this house and then we're gonna go and do this. Very easy, go to B, go to C, do a mission. And I feel like missions can be as simple as that or as complex as external load in the Alps, right? Are you able to integrate scenario-based training, like a...

missions specifically where people can go in and they can fly in their medical mission or they can go and do these these missions that are specific to their operation. You know just tippin' of all that I can go on for five hours now. You know we have such cool missions on it and I mean that's basically with the whole aviation passion where everything starts really to be to get super colorful. Yeah I mean look the I just pick up I mean like I mentioned earlier some are having a sling load mission.

where you need to be on time and so on. Weather gets bad, out of a sudden the ceiling gets down. Can you still do it with the long line and all that stuff?

or like LAPD, doing the car chasing. Doing a high speed chase? I mean, that's already all in the simulator. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you can chase cars. You can go there. You can get an engine failure whilst chasing the car and then find the right landing Yeah. Then what are you doing? Or you may have from in LA, you have like the fork from the seat. So you need to be sure on the ceiling and all that stuff. I mean, it's an endless thing you can do.

It really goes from, I mean, working with each customer. Just over this week and I had the pleasure to visit one of our customers in Greenland. So Air Greenland, and I they are operating in crazy environment. Yeah, it's wild. Pull the mares and all. Yeah, exactly. So they have even the gun in the aircraft as the default. Yeah, of course.

Halsey J Schider (36:03.566)
The cool part there is working with the customers to build their customized mission. They have some geolocation tools where they are doing some sling load, external cargo one, and a lot of things. And this is basically the beauty.

Because a lot of those things is just the visual part and I mean we manage that from end to end so we can do one mission after the other. incredible. And then you can start exchanging the missions between the different operators. you can, for example, there are guys from India which are doing mountain training which has been developed in the three salves. So you really can exchange it. That's the beauty because we have one platform. It's not one simulator where everyone needs to go.

and then get at two o'clock in the morning a check slot and that's it. So we really can do the full training and right now we're also working to digitize a lot of accidents where you can train yourself to ourselves to judge whether you were doing the decision point early enough or not. Awareness training and all those things. mean, this is exactly very powerful. But also this Loft Twin capability gets in because

You can record the stuff, you can fly, you can even fly together. And then out of a sudden, you need to take it over and then because the colleague is doing something else or whatever. And from that point of view, you really can have endless possibilities on that mission training part. Yeah, it's crazy because I think it's easy to be a Monday morning quarterback, as they say. You look at an accident and you say, I would never do that. I could never let that happen.

And what I've experienced, I haven't had an accident, luckily. But I've had times when I've had to think quickly and make a decision. And sometimes you're almost afraid to make the decision because is it the right decision? And it's because you don't have the training necessarily because you, again, in a traditional training world, you can only push it so far, right? You can only, look at that, that's service. Where's mine?

Halsey J Schider (38:14.366)
I don't get any... This is unbelievable. Yeah, see, it's a great team. So, I lost my trade there a little bit, but... yeah, you know, in the training environment, you can't get to that decision point necessarily. You can simulate it in the helicopter as best you can, but you really can't for safety. So to me, that's what I'm thinking. How nice it would be to have that muscle memory and the mental memory of like...

Oh my God, I've been here before. This is a real situation that I've encountered, because I encountered it in a Loft dynamic simulator. And instead of having to think of, do I go A or B, I know what I can do. I've made that decision. I've flown that. I've had that accident already in this world. So to me, that's where it all changes. I think that's just absolutely incredible. Yeah. And I think in regards of that, a way of being accessible of such thing is very important because

you need to have the time to do that. And at the moment you have the time and it's not so expensive anymore out of a sudden you can really do it. I'll give you an example. Myself as a fixed wing pilot flying in Switzerland there is always like in autumn and winter this condition where the fog is filling up the valley. And sometimes you have this fog ceiling. We call it below it's gray, up it's blue and so on.

From a fixed wing pilot point of view, you really need to have those holes where you have enough speed, you need to know that you can go under the ceiling for the landing and so on. So decision is very important. As I went for my second squirrel lesson, I saw that it's very easy. As long as I'm in the ground, I can always land as a helicopter pilot. And then I went first time with my flying instructor and I went on, went on and so on.

And I said, no, why? mean, I see the church there. see the family. Yeah, way below 40 knots. And so, yeah, but I can land. But if you catch now some cloud or whatever, I mean, you know, it's not stable anymore. for me, this was such a good experience.

Halsey J Schider (40:26.394)
I thought, I I felt super safe because I can see the ground. And those are things, of course, for an experienced helicopter pilot, it's a no brainer, but for myself, it's like, wow. And if you can do such things in the helicopter, well, you really talk to people there. Another very cool thing, I mean, you mentioned on a real helicopter, we simulate failures. On the simulator, we can do real failures.

And as we did all the evaluations, we had 60 pilots which had to do three hours flight on the simulator with two and a half thousand hours experience. And they had to do an autorotation. All of them did hundreds of autorotations as flying instructor already. But typically autorotation is done with a power recovery. Think about if you make a power recovery if you have the engine lost.

I mean, what's going to happen is obvious. more than one third of those experienced pilots just made based on muscle memory a power recovery. But they knew it's an auto rotation based on engine flame out. But it was just like muscle memory. I mean, a super stable approach, very nice flare, but then doing the power recovery, it's like, then it's like.

And I mean, virtually once already died. And based on training something wrong, mean, it's basically negative training. And those are things we now can do safe. Well, and the thing that's also interesting about autos, in my opinion, is when you train an autorotation in a real helicopter, what do you do? You lower collective and you roll off the throttle. We do it, I've done it, 10,000 times, roll off.

Lower roll off, lower roll off. And then you actually see some of the accident reports and you hear about people doing auto rotations, full down, they have a bad landing. And it turns out the engine actually didn't quit. Something else was happening. But they lowered collective, they rolled off the throttle, and they did a full down auto rotation in a helicopter that had an engine. And so to me, I look at a simulator where

Halsey J Schider (42:45.132)
That completely eliminates that because you're flying along in the sim. Boom, engine failure. Exactly. You're not rolling off lowering. You're just lowering the collective. So to me, think that even just that, because I always tell my students, hey, look, what are the secondary indications? Do we hear a noise difference? Is there a yaw? What else is happening? Because don't just assume and roll off the throttle. If anything, just lower the collective. Wrong decision.

You know, again, I don't know if it's the wrong decision. I think it's just muscle memory. Lower, roll off. Lower, That's exactly the point I want to make. And from that point of view, I think it's very important to stay on that approach that we just say, look, let's do the real malfunctions in a safe environment. Train it up until you feel comfortable. mean, learning from the positive.

get through silence by doing it again and again and again. it works perfectly. And for me too, I think back to this idea of kind of when do you make a decision? I'm curious, do you guys, have you guys put a group of experienced pilots into like an inadvertent IMC situation? And how long does it take for people until they decide, uh-oh, I need to turn around or I need to land?

Because that's another point where when you're training, don't, you your instructor might say, OK, put your hood on. You know, now you're in the clouds. And it's like, well, no, I can see everything fine. Right? So actually, when you're presented with a situation, I've had this personally where I'm flying, and I'm like, huh. Like, should I turn around? Like, the weather. And then I have a friend that's with me. You know, this is like flying back in the day. We'd fly multiple pairs on a tour company I worked for.

it would be a bad weather day and they're like, no, it's fine. Because they flew in Alaska, right? They saw what a mile visibility looked like. They saw what three miles looked like. For me, I would see like five and I'm like, whoa, am I an IMC? So I'm curious to hear from your guys' perspective at Loft what this whole double IMC situation looks like.

Halsey J Schider (45:00.206)
This podcast is brought to you by Cellicopter. Tired of listings that go nowhere? Exhausted by tire kickers who waste your time? Don't sell your helicopter alone. Cellicopter handles the entire process from start to finish. So if your helicopter is sat too long waiting for a buyer, contact the team at Cellicopter today for your complimentary market valuation. Call 1-855-CELLICOPTER, 1-855-735-5226 or

email sales at sellacopter.com. Sellacopter. List it, sell it, done. Yeah, I mean, you need to experience by yourself. I mean, you have all the possibilities to have those different cloud layers. You can even set the triggers. So basically, you can really push the pilot into direction where if wrong decision making is done, it really goes wrong. So like, why is flying? can just...

lowering the ceiling. I mean, you have bad visibility, you can automatically lower the ceiling step by step. They just go closer to the ground, closer to the ground until it's gone. I mean, and you can also remove the visibility distance and that can be tuned based on existing situation which were already there. And you can really talk the pilot into that direction. And I mean, here, here, that's a beauty because this Loftwing, I mean, everyone can record the session.

And it's not like a video recording. It's a full simulation recording in three dimension. Then you can exchange and say, yeah, but maybe do this or maybe you should have checked this. But there the house is not visible anymore. But you can still see the tower there. I mean, you can really debate about each second what was good, what was not good. You can even watch it at home having the VR assistor. And from that point of view, that's really the big advantage that

Having now the accessibility also to the experienced pilots, just normally are super busy with flying, we really have this exchange and we can gain a lot of there and build the most fantastic situations. it's amazing. You know, if you look at a lot of accidents, it's a lot of high time guys, right? A lot of experienced pilots crash helicopters. And I think it's because of lack of training experience, the lack of being in those situations.

Halsey J Schider (47:24.67)
and not being able to do those situations, stepping away from the technology and everything else, this is, I think, an important question. And one issue that a lot of people have with simulators is they feel sick. I know guys that fly helicopters for 20 years, they've never had motion sickness in their life, and then they get in a simulator, and 20 minutes later, they're puking in a garbage bag.

Is it because former simulators were giving wrong cues? And have you guys been able to kind of help solve that problem? Yeah, so I mean, it's a very, very good question. And you asked basically two questions. Let me split that in two parts. So first of all, before we even were able to qualify for an authority, we had to prove to them that we are better than what was there. Sure.

Because you know there are a lot of mean a lot of concerns around them. I think we thanks to the fact having correct visual system and very fast agile motion and a very very short control input like we are having much more possibility to tune the system much closer to the real helicopter. That said, we

constantly monitored it over the past 10 years and we were able to make a fantastic improvement. And thanks to that, we know today that what you get with Loft is going to be the best one in regards of motion sickness prevention. It's awesome. And we're continuously monitoring because you know we have all the data.

from the pilot so we even figure out already indication if this pilot may get sick. and what's causing it. Exactly. And I think the big advantage here is that we own everything. We are not buying a third party motion from somewhere and then integrate it with a third party visual system and integrate it with a flight model you bought somewhere. are not system integrators, we do it by ourselves.

Halsey J Schider (49:42.318)
And that allows us to work. That's just like in regards of frequency. Our render ranging is doing a 60K resolution at 90 hertz. don't know what that means. Like if you have a 4K. that's very good. We have 16K. Wow. And then you have 90 pixels per second and so on. And this is way all the way over the place what you can have in other areas. The second thing is

in regards of possibilities we have on the motion system to have the control input measured, you are having the same control input speed like you have on a real aircraft. And I mean if you have all those things, you make the pilot forget that he is in a simulator and that's basically the whole goal on the whole stuff. Yeah, totally.

Yeah, and from that point of view, we are proud that we are in the meanwhile far better than the existing level D simulators. I you don't need to ask me. Go and ask the guys flying level D simulators in Europe on an H125. They will tell you. And I mean, it's unfortunate, but it's very challenging to do it. mean, wrong visual system, too slow motions.

too much lag on control inputs and from that point of view those are a few basic factors we already can do and then of course it is also the way pilots use the simulator. I at a certain moment I mean you can go and do sling load and so on and this is not straightforward. I mean it's just absolutely incredible and I think you know it's one of those things is

as technology gets better, we should have better things. I mean, it's just like, you know, airplanes started off with the Wright brothers and now we're here. And a hundred years will be there. And so it seems like, okay, for the last, you know, know, 30 plus years of simulation or longer, they were doing maybe the best they could with the technology. And I think it's just great that you

Halsey J Schider (52:04.322)
had that light bulb moment, you put on the VR goggles and you think, this could be something. And I think that's how industries become better, is by utilizing technology to make things more accessible, make things more affordable, and in this very important case, make things more realistic. And so I just think it's really incredible work that you guys are doing. You guys, you're clearly a very smart guy, you have a very smart team. You've been able to accomplish

so much in such a short time. As we wrap up here, what are you most excited for moving forward in this next year? And what does the next five years look like for Loft? Yeah, yeah, so I mean, the most excited moment for what's happening right now is now we have those foundations done and we now can step into all those missions and cool stuff. doing a

car chasing or whatever. That's incredible. Those are the really cool want one in my house. I would just play that thing every night. Yeah, we probably can get it on afterwards. Or like there are some hidden Easter eggs. mean, go to Area 51. check out if the aliens exist. Yes, you may find them. Whose idea was it to do the Easter eggs? Is that...

Is that a Fabby creation? No, mean, look, we have many, many creative guys. It's just like, I mean, everyone is allowed to do so, then let's do it as long as it's regulated under the authority. Of course. Yeah. But the point here is now scaling this up in the helicopter world. I mean, that's a given. We are doing it. We are fully committed to do that with all the OEMs around because we really want to bring the pilots back.

to the OEM to close the loop. That the OEM knows what the pilots are doing. The pilots can ask the OEM if there's loft wind possibilities. We want to enable each flight school, each operator, each airliner to really have the best training tools, to have modern training tools and not sit anymore in those old boxes there and do the training. And then in addition, we now take that...

Halsey J Schider (54:17.74)
full qualified technology and we step into fix ring. I mean, we work right now on two airliners and also in regards of pilot shortage stepping into the EV tool market, which brings basically both. Yeah, you bring them two together. Well, it's very cool. Very fortunate to talk with you. I this is so cool. I really appreciate you. I'm guessing it's a very busy show for you.

Always, but you know again here or I think having a great team managing everything around so I point of view it's Definitely great. Well, it's incredible guys. This is to me number one up European voters couldn't be better This is it's very exciting a European based company doing incredible things Beyond everything and all the cool technology what I just want to make sure I point out to the listeners is just the human Ingenuity, right? He puts on a VR set

and he has a light bulb that goes off and now he's here showcasing this incredible simulator. And so if you're doing something in the world and you have an aha moment, you can do it. If you think you can create a better mousetrap, then you can. Or you can't in some cases, but it's just incredible. If you fall, just stand up and move on. Don't give up. That's the right thing to do.

Yeah, it's a change in... We have no access to all the information. And at my time, I mean, we had to go to the library to find a book about something and hope... the volume here. Okay, where is it? And so on. I mean, the information is all there and just use that information to make great use of it. Yeah, that's so cool. Well, Fabio, thank you so much for joining me here live from European Roaders. How cool is this, guys? It wasn't too distracting either. There's been people coming by, but it's been...

Pretty simple, so that worked out well. Again, to MHM Publishing, thank you for creating the Vertical Helicast family. We got the Helicopter Podcast, Vertical MRO, The Real Rescue, and of course, the HangerZ podcast. we're so excited to be here. And Fabby, thanks again. And for our listeners, make sure that you like, follow, and share. We'll talk to you all soon. Thanks, Fabby. We really appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thanks, buddy. Appreciate it. We know you love helicopters. That's why you're here. But are you ready to make it a career?

Halsey J Schider (56:37.912)
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Just call 800-537-2778. Precision Aviation Group. Others sell parts. We sell support. This podcast is brought to you by Cellicopter. Tired of listings that go nowhere? Exhausted by tire kickers who waste your time? Don't sell your helicopter alone. Cellicopter handles the entire process from start to finish. So if your helicopter is sat too long waiting for a buyer, contact the team at Cellicopter today.

For your complimentary market valuation, call 1-855-Cellicopter 1-855-735-5226 or email sales at Cellicopter.com. Cellicopter. List it, sell it, done.