VANCE AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. -- The 71st Operations Group building opened two exterior walls March 14 to clear the way for the visual dome of the new T-1A Jayhawk flight trainer.

The new simulator is the final piece of a contract with L-3 Technologies, which began with the arrival here of the first simulator August 2010.

A 120-ton crane placed the 2,200-pound visual dome near the side of the operations building. From there, a hydraulic lift moved the visual dome into the building and onto the cockpit section of the T-1 simulator.

"The new T-1 simulators are a great addition and will enhance our ability to continue training the world's greatest pilots," said Col. Kurt Meidel, 71st OG commander. "The new simulators increase T-1 training capacity by 33 percent. Additionally, they will allow us to migrate some training from primitive training devices into the simulator, giving our T-1 students a better foundation before they start flying the aircraft."

With the new simulators student pilots will need fewer actual flying hours to qualify for their wings," said Michael Rathmann, the simulator project officer and quality assurance representative with the operations group. "More simulator hours will reduce the fuel and maintenance cost of flying aircrafts."

The new T-1 simulator provides a realistic flight-training environment with 240 degrees of state-of-the-art visual flight and airfield simulation. It can create images of more than 200 operational airfields and a variety of weather conditions, said Rathmann.

More than $300,000 of renovations to the operations building were required to accommodate the new simulator, said Rathmann

Employees from L-3 Communications will install the new simulator over the next six weeks. Students are scheduled to start using the simulator in April.