Newcastle International Airport announces UK-first virtual reality tech investment

Newcastle International Airport has become the first Airport in the UK to invest in FLAIM Trainer, the world’s first multi-sensory virtual reality firefighting technology at its Training Academy.

Located on the airport site, the Training Academy offers a range of “world-class” fire and safety related training courses that attract delegates from around the globe. The FLAIM Trainer is a “pioneering” immersive learning solution, providing firefighters with realistic, virtual reality emergency scenarios to support their real-world training.

Combining high fidelity virtual fire environments with real time physical interfaces that simulate the heat and noise of emergency situations, the system allows the Training Academy to further enhance the firefighting training on offer with a virtual environment that provides the trainees with live feedback and statistical analysis of their performance.

Supplied by FLAIM Systems, the technology holds an expansive library offering thousands of hours of real fire scenarios in over 60 different environments.

Graham Reeve, fire training instructor at Newcastle International Training Academy, commented: “We often look at best practices and new technology to continuously improve the offering to our delegates, therefore we were very excited to introduce the FLAIM Trainer into Newcastle International Training Academy.

“It not only provides a realistic fire training environment, but it is extremely safe, easy to set up and provides valuable insights to the learner on their performance.” FLAIM Trainer also allows the Academy to support the Airport’s ambitious Net Zero Carbon 2035 roadmap by reducing the need for real fire scenarios.

Graeme Mason, chief sustainability and communications officer, added: “The Airport’s investment in this new virtual reality technology is evidence of our forward-thinking approach and the commitment of every area of the business to our Net Zero 2035 strategy.

“We have already begun the journey on our roadmap to become a Net Zero Carbon Airport by the year 2035. As part of this, a new solar farm has recently been completed with the aim of providing 100 per cent of the Airport’s electricity by sustainable means and a new fleet of electric vehicles are being rolled out to replace all the fuel powered vehicles on the site.”

FLAIM Systems chief executive officer, Simon Miller, said: “We are delighted to partner with Newcastle International Airport to support their provision of world-class fire and safety training courses. FLAIM delivers a safe and cost-effective way to replicate the challenges and uncertainty of real-world emergency situations.

“Our immersive learning platform complements real-world training to help prepare firefighters to respond with confidence and keep their communities, colleagues and customers safe.”

By Matthew Neville – Senior Correspondent, Bdaily

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