RTM STAR Center: Toledo

Course Listing Course Application

The Raymond T. McKay Simulation, Training, Assessment & Research Center, at both the Toledo and Dania Beach locations, has been awarded ISO 9001 certification. RTM STAR Center is believed to be the only maritime training facility in the United States with such a distinction.

The Raymond T. McKay Simulation Training and Research Center in Toledo, Ohio, like its sister-facility in Dania Beach, Fla., possesses some of the most advanced marine training and simulation capabilities in the United States.
The Toledo facility has the technology, course ware, facilities and staff to conduct complete simulated training and research for both deep sea and inland waters ship-handling. In addtion to deep-sea courses, the Toledo STAR Center offers courses that focus on inland waters, Great Lakes and western rivers navigation.
The center is open year-round and is used for mariner training and recertification, as well as the upgrading of merchant marine licenses for AMO members.
The Toledo center's training bridge system is comprised of two visual bridge simulators, each with an electronic chart and positioning system, and two radar/navigation simulators. The features of the training bridge system include:

Bridge one has a 233-degree horizontal field of view.
Bridge two (tow-boat configuration capability) has a 178-degree horizontal field of view.
Bridges three and four are non-visual bridges equipped with radar, ARPA and electronic navigation.

The STAR facilities in both Toledo and Dania Beach feature shipboard simulations operated by technicians from a control room. Training bridges at both centers feature control panels similar to those found on deep-sea and- inland-waters ships, as well as communication equipment to replicate radio traffic and correspondence between the bridge and engine room.
The two visual bridge simulators at Toledo are used for both training and research, including work in such areas as vessel and bridge resource management, ship handling, basic rules of the road, emergency response, tug operations, vessel and harbor familiarization and port design.
The two non-visual bridges are used to support the visual bridges. They are also used for training in anti-collision, advanced navigation techniques and VTS operations.
The bridge simulators are augmented by a variety of ownship models, as well as harbor and waterway databases, which can reproduce over 100 sailing environments in a very realistic manner.
Some of the simulators are interactive and can be linked for exercises involving both deck and engineering officers. The simulators can also be operated as individual trainers.
Toledo's full-mission simulation capability can provide intensive experience to the junior engineering officer. The STAR Center facilities provide opportunities to experiment with system dynamics and plant efficiency at the senior level.
The Toledo facility's engineroom simulation consists of a fully-automated propulsion control room and a separate engine room, with a correlated diesel plant sound system and an interactive system mimic representing the propulsion engines and their auxiliary subsystems.
Monitoring of plant operations and management of the shipboard electrical system are performed from the control room while real -time operation and maintenance procedures on the main engines and auxiliary equipment can be performed in the engine room space.

The Toledo facility also features a medium-speed propulsion plant simulator, comprised of the control and monitoring equipment necessary to operate a dual-engine, single controllable-pitch propeller arrangement. The simulator includes the auxiliary subsystems for main engine furl and lubrication, electrical generation and distribution and fresh water generation.
Simulator training became available at the Toledo facility in 1983. At the time, the school was called the Maritime Training and Research Center, operated by AMO. The facility's simulator was then one of the first in the nation.
In 1993, the center's simulators were upgraded to faster, more accurate and complete facilities. At the same time, AMO's Dania Beach STAR Center was opened for membership training with similar equipment.

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