Reiser Simulation and Training (REISER) has completed the Luftfahrt-Bundesamt (LBA) assessment of the H145 XR-SIM. The LBA, the German Federal Aviation Office, declared the XR-SIM as ‘ready for training’.

The successful assessment of this innovative training device marks an important milestone not only for one individual type of training device, but for the future of professional helicopter training. For REISER, the H145 XR-SIM is a lighthouse project in close cooperation with the German aviation authority, the LBA. The XR-SIM comprises a mixed-reality training system designed to combine a realistic cockpit environment with a virtual outside world in a way that supports regulated, professional pilot and crew training.

While pure virtual reality devices are flexible and scalable, they often lack crew interaction and physical realism. The key is to combine the flexibility and scalability of virtual environments with the physical realism, haptic interaction, and crew coordination of a real cockpit. This is precisely the gap addressed by Reiser's XR-SIM: a full-scale, high-fidelity cockpit with real controls, embedded in a fully virtual outside world using Varjo's mixed-reality head-mounted display technology.

The DRF Akademie acquired the H145 XR-SIM in response to the growing demand for high-quality H145 training capacity. At Lufthansa Aviation Training's (LAT) Frankfurt training centre, the system complements the existing Reiser H135/H145 Full-Flight Simulator already installed for DRF Luftrettung and extends the available training infrastructure with a new mixed-reality capability.

“This successful assessment is much more than the acceptance of just another simulator,” reveals Martin Keil, CTO at Reiser. “It shows that mixed reality is now moving from a promising technology into the field of authority-assessed professional aviation training. Pilots need cockpit realism, real controls, crew interaction and a training environment that can evolve flexibly with operational requirements. XR-SIM brings these elements together and opens a completely new playing field for scalable, realistic and certifiable training solutions.”

The teams of the LBA, the DRF Akademie, LAT and Reiser worked closely together to achieve this milestone. All stakeholders – regulatory, technical, operational and customer-side – were involved in the final assessment phase, contributing to the positive outcome and the readiness of the system for training use.