[354] MTSU Aerospace Unveils New Air Traffic Control Simulator

Release date: March 14, 2011

News and Media Relations contacts: Randy Weiler, 615-898-5616 or jweiler@mtsu.edu
Tom Tozer, 615-898-5616 or ttozer@mtsu.edu
Aerospace contact: Dr. Wayne Dornan, 615-898-2788 or wdornan@mtsu.edu

MTSU Aerospace Unveils New Air Traffic Control Simulator

(MURFREESBORO) — Media and dignitaries attended the unveiling of the MTSU Department of Aerospace's unique Air Traffic Control Training and Research Facility.
Media and VIPs were introduced to the simulator facility today (March 14) in Business and Aerospace Building Room S112 following brief remarks by MTSU President Sidney A. McPhee, aerospace chair Dr. Wayne Dornan and Kevin C. Kelley, vice president for the Solutions Development Division of CSC.
Aerospace students demonstrated the equipment and faculty and administrators answered questions about how the technology works.
CSC was awarded the project contract and delivered the equipment to MTSU in 2010. Renovation and construction took place in late fall and early winter.
The Air Traffic Control Training and Research Facility includes a seamless, 360-degree fiberglass control tower, the only one like it in the world, rising to 9 feet and a diameter of 29 feet, and has 10 high-definition digital projectors that will create the most realistic tower simulation available today (the tower simulator will contain seven operational positions: two local, two ground, flight-data, clearance-delivery and cab-coordinator); 10 radar suites that can simulate both en route and radar approach control environments; and a pseudopilot positions area.
Work also has begun on an interface with the CSC NexSim simulator in the ATC lab and the dispatch lab with its NexSim ramp tower and aircraft simulators at Murfreesboro Airport.
Presently, the technology can simulate the FAA Training Academy in Oklahoma City (fictional), Nashville International Airport, Memphis International Airport (under construction), Raleigh-Durham International Airport, Daytona Beach International Airport, Elizabeth City, N.C., Coast Guard Air Station/Regional Airport and the Akron-Canton, Ohio, Regional Airport.

###




About MTSU’s Department of Aerospace
MTSU aerospace began as a flight-training program in 1942. At the time, the airport was located on the University’s 500-acre campus and the program was under the direction of one full-time instructor. In 1969, it was proposed that a full four-year aviation curriculum be developed and than an independent department be established. On July 1, 1971, the aerospace department became fully autonomous with an enrollment of 58 students. The department has grown into one of the largest and most respected programs in the nation. It employs 17 full-time faculty members with more than 50 full- and part-time staff. It now has more than 700 majors, with concentrations in aerospace administration, technology, flight dispatch, maintenance management and professional pilot. The program has been nationally accredited since 1992. It is one of nine departments in the College of Basic and Applied Sciences and one of MTSU’s signature programs.
In regard to the flight-training program, the department has the largest and most technically advanced Diamond DA40 single-engine training aircraft fleet in the United States, and was the first collegiate aviation program to teach students in glass cockpits. The department also has a CRJ-200 flight simulator and a decommissioned Boeing 727 airliner donated by FedEx.
Visit www.mtsu.edu/aerospace online to learn more about the department.




Founded in 1911, Middle Tennessee State University is a Tennessee Board of Regents institution located in Murfreesboro and is the state’s largest public undergraduate institution. MTSU now boasts one of the nation’s first master’s degree programs in horse science, and the Council of Graduate Schools in Washington, D.C., acclaims MTSU’s Master of Science in Professional Science degree — the only one in Tennessee — as a model program. MTSU recently unveiled three new doctoral degrees in the sciences.

For MTSU news and information, go online to mtsunews.com.