Fruitful Canadian–Hungarian cooperation

To celebrate the significant anniversary, the Canadian-founded and headquartered international high-tech company CAE chose a venue that is suitable and worthy of the prestige of the international firm: it celebrated the 75th anniversary of its establishment in Normafa Event House, Budapest on 12 December. Being at the leading edge of digital immersion, this company – which was formerly known as Canadian Aviation Electronics and offers solutions for making the world a safer place – was founded by Ken Patrick, its first director in Saint-Hubert, Quebec in 1947. Backed by its 70-year record of industry-firsts, CAE has been delivering innovative training and operation-support solutions for the civil aviation, defence and security, and healthcare sectors ever since.

At the event, it was stated that the international company, which has also been present in Hungary since 2009, is the selected partner of those customers who operate in a complex, mission-critical and largely regulated environment, where successful results are of critical importance while the CAE has the broadest global presence in the industry (with around 13,000 employees, 180 sites and training locations in over 35 countries around the world).

In his welcome speech, József Hajdu, Managing Director, CAE Engineering Ltd reminded the audience that the CAE Defence and Security (D&S) division is focused on helping its customers (the defence forces) achieve and maintain the highest levels of mission readiness. At the same time, the CAE is leveraging its training systems integrator capabilities to offer a comprehensive portfolio of training centers/services and simulation products across the air, land, sea and public safety market segments along with world-class support.

Following his presentation, József Hajdu told the press that the Budapest-based development center serves two purposes, as besides the modernization and development of CAE-made simulators that are already fielded in Europe, it is working on the development of the CAE GESI constructive simulation system, which is in use with several nations in Europe and the Middle East.

He added that the company prioritizes its support provided to the defence forces in maintaining their mission readiness. “Beyond development, our company is working to contribute to the successes of the Hungarian Defence Forces at multiple points: to the training of fighter pilots through our NFTC program, while the pilots of Airbus A319 jet airliners are trained on the CAE 7000XR Series full-flight simulators (FFS) – a product of our company for WizzAir – in the Budapest-based WizzAir Training Center. In cooperation with Airbus Helicopters, we started providing helicopter aviation training for H145M pilots in the summer of 2022”, said the managing director.

In his speech delivered in English, Brigadier General Dr. József Koller, Acting Commander, HDF Air Force Command (an organization established in the previous month) – representing Lieutenant General Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi PhD, Commander, Hungarian Defence Forces – outlined the cooperation between CAE and the Hungarian Defence Forces.

“We are intertwined with this company that is currently still running the NATO Flying Training in Canada (NFTC) program, in which we have been present for more than 20 years. At the same time, considering the domains here at home, CAE is also present in our professional life, among others through the Airbus A319 program, which our pilots can utilize thanks to our civilian relationships – but I could also mention the Falcon 7X full-flight simulator, which is a CAE product as well.”, said the general.

“Let me refer to my own experiences at this point, since I myself had the opportunity to try out another CAE product, the H145 multirole military helicopter simulator made in Donauwörth, when I was conducting type conversion training in Germany. Due to the foregoing, I think that we must continue a very fruitful relationship with this company in the future, and for this reason I would like to put it this way: I wish the CAE a thousand birthdays yet to come, so that we can further develop our highly excellent cooperation in an even more fruitful way”, said Brigadier General Dr. József Koller.

At the event held on the occasion of CAE’s 75th anniversary, speeches were also delivered by Caroline Charette, Canada’s ambassador to Hungary, Dr. Mária Vass-Salazar, Hungary’s ambassador to Canada and Thibaut Trancart, General Manager Europe and the Middle East (EMEA), CAE Defence & Security Division. The event also provided an opportunity for the company to present the results achieved by Hungarian developers in the last 3-4 years to the representatives of diplomacy and the press, as well as to its partners.