Loft Dynamics, Alaska Airlines Team To Develop 737 VR Flight Simulator

With the stated goal of challenging the status quo in pilot training, Switzerland’s Loft Dynamics has partnered with Alaska Airlines to reimagine the legacy full-flight simulator (FFS) using virtual-reality (VR) technology. The partnership has implications beyond airliners, including helicopters and eVTOLs.

Through Alaska Star Ventures, the airline’s corporate venture capital arm, Alaska has invested in Loft to support development and deployment of a compact, less costly full-motion simulator for the Boeing 737 that uses extended-reality technology.

With Level D performance, the highest fidelity level for a FFS, the device will require 1/12th the space of legacy full-motion simulators. More simulators can be installed in training centers to grow capacity and they can be deployed more widely, increasing accessibility.

The agreement with Alaska includes LoftSpatial, an app for Apple Vision Pro that allows cloud-based VR training anywhere. Loft believes its technology will redefine pilot training, allowing the wide range of now-used part-task trainers, flight training devices (FTD) and FFSs to be replaced with just LoftSpatial and VR simulator.

Founded in 2016 as VRM Switzerland, Zurich-based Loft initially targeted the helicopter market, where flight simulators are still a rarity. The company received the first certification for a VR fight simulation training device in 2021 from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).

Loft’s Airbus Helicopters’ H125 VR simulator became the first to be approved as a Level 3 FTD by EASA in 2022 and the FAA in 2024. In March, the company launched its second Airbus VR simulator, for the H145 light turbine twin. These devices are the jumping-off points for the 737 simulator.

Loft’s VR simulator has a 360-deg. visual system, using a VR head-mounted display and an electric six-axis motion system. The device has a full-scale replica cockpit, with physical buttons and switches but virtual displays overlaid onto the instruments by the VR headset.

“With the H125 in Europe we have FTD3 qualification. And because in Europe the H125 is considered a non-complex aircraft, you can do everything—operator proficiency check, instrument proficiency check and a large part of the type rating,” says Loft founder and CEO Fabi Riesen.

The fidelity of the full-scale replica cockpit means it is usable from the lowest to the highest level of simulator, Riesen says. The Loft-developed visual system, meanwhile, already has the fidelity required for a Level C FFS. “Why it is not yet Level D is because we haven’t yet released snow and rain,” he says, adding these features will be released as a software package now under development.

While a Level 3 FTD does not require motion, Riesen says Loft learned that with a 3D visual, motion cues need to be more dynamic than in a Level D FFS. In its VR simulator, the transport delay—the time lag between control input and motion response—is much less than the 100-millisec. requirement for a Level D motion system, he says, adding the motion system’s rate capability is also five times higher.

The 737 VR simulator uses a full-size, full-stroke motion system, rather than the smaller system on the FTD. But because the simulator cab is much smaller—360-deg. VR headsets replacing a large 180-deg. wraparound mirror—installing VR FFSs will not require heavily reinforced high-bay buildings.

“Fixed-wing airliner devices are going to have the full range of a Level D, but with the speed limitations from Loft,” Riesen says. “So we are going beyond Level D motion.”

Loft’s VR simulator uses a technique called pose-tracking that enables the pilots to see themselves in the VR display and operate the physical knob and switches. This creates the skeleton of a 3D avatar that can be manipulated in real time.

“This skeleton can also be sent to the instructor station, so the instructor sees the pilot in three dimensions,” Riesen says. The avatar also can be sent to the copilot in the same cockpit or remotely in another device, using multicrew pose-tracking.

The initial H125 and H145 VR simulators are single-crew FTDs, but Loft is developing a dual-crew H145 simulator to be certified as an FFS. “We are working on the dual-seat multicrew H145 so next year, even before the airliner has been qualified, we will have the H145 qualified as an FFS and not an FTD,” he says.

Loft’s approach to meet customer training requirements uses just two tools: single-seat and dual-seat VR simulators and the LoftSpatial home training kit running the same software. These can be deployed to make more efficient use of training devices and increase training system capacity.

“If you look at the training devices an airline needs today, it starts with studying at home. Next is having a desktop trainer to learn the avionics, and it goes to touchscreen-based part-task trainers, FTDs and on up the scale,” Riesen says. “The biggest challenge for the pilots is, if you have seven different training devices, you need to figure out which device can do which task. We only have two types of devices.”