Event story · Karachi
IDEAS 2024: the show where VR grew a set of real switches
Two years after debuting with a pure VR trainer, we came back to the Karachi Expo Centre with mixed reality — a physical cockpit you can touch, mapped 1:1 into a rendered world. Then the Chief of the Naval Staff sat down and flew it.
19–22 November 2024
Karachi Expo Centre, Pakistan
Hall 4, Stand D-30
Hybrid VR Simulator · Enstrom 280-FX MR SML
Exhibitor
FSDC Aerosolutions exhibited at IDEAS 2024 — the 12th International Defence Exhibition and Seminar, held 19–22 November 2024 at the Karachi Expo Centre — from Hall 4, Stand D-30. The company showed a Hybrid VR Simulator and the Enstrom 280-FX MR SML mixed-reality simulator. Trade coverage reports that Admiral Naveed Ashraf, Chief of the Naval Staff, visited the stand and experienced the mixed-reality system.
What changed between 2022 and 2024
At IDEAS 2022 we brought a VR trainer. It worked, people liked it, and it had one persistent problem that everybody in synthetic training knows about and nobody enjoys discussing: in a fully virtual cockpit, you cannot find the switches.
Hand tracking gets you close. It does not get you to muscle memory. A pilot reaching for a fuel selector needs the selector to be there, with the right shape, the right resistance and the right distance from the throttle. Rendered hands hovering over a rendered panel teach the sequence but not the reach — and the reach is half the skill.
Mixed reality solves it by refusing to render the parts that already exist. The cockpit is physical and mapped 1:1. Headset pass-through composites the pilot’s real hands and the real panel into a virtual outside world. Everything the pilot touches is real; everything beyond the canopy is rendered. That was the difference between our 2022 stand and our 2024 stand, and it is the reason visitors stayed longer.
| Pure VR (2022) | Mixed reality (2024) | |
|---|---|---|
| Cockpit controls | Rendered, hand-tracked | Physical, 1:1 spatially mapped |
| Tactile feedback | None | Real switch detents, real control forces |
| Outside world | Fully rendered | Fully rendered |
| Procedural transfer | Sequence learning | Sequence and reach — closer to the aircraft |
| Best fit | Orientation, spatial awareness, screening | Procedures, emergencies, type familiarity |
Longer read: mixed reality vs virtual reality for flight training →
Two devices, two arguments
Enstrom 280-FX MR SML
A rotary-wing mixed-reality trainer with a 1:1 physical cockpit overlaid with pass-through graphics. Helicopters are where mixed reality earns its keep fastest: hover training is almost entirely about fine, continuous control inputs and external visual reference. Give a student a real collective and cyclic with correct friction and centring, put a photoreal world outside, and the transfer is immediate.
Hybrid VR Simulator
The platform that would eventually become the AeroFusion line: rapid tactical flight-model swapping so a single physical footprint covers multiple aircraft. At IDEAS 2024 it was the capability demonstration. Nine months later, at IDEF Türkiye 2025, it was a product with a stand number in Istanbul.
The visit
On the final day, Admiral Naveed Ashraf, Chief of the Naval Staff, visited the FSDC stand and experienced the mixed-reality simulator. Trade coverage described the visit as an opportunity to see the system’s realism, precision and design capability directly.
It is easy to be cynical about VIP walk-rounds at defence exhibitions — they are scheduled, they are photographed, and most last four minutes. What makes them matter is not the photograph. It is that a stand only gets onto that route if the organisers and the service think there is something on it worth the Chief’s four minutes. In November 2024 a Pakistani-built synthetic trainer made that list.
A breakthrough in simulation technology — and a Pakistani-built mixed-reality trainer on the floor of the country’s flagship defence exhibition.
— From contemporary trade coverage of the IDEAS 2024 stand
Four days, in order
Pre-show announcement
Defence media publishes that FSDC Aerosolutions will unveil advanced flight simulators at IDEAS 2024, naming Stand D-30 in Hall 4 and noting two new products.
IDEAS 2024 opens
The 12th International Defence Exhibition and Seminar opens at the Karachi Expo Centre for a four-day run.
Delegation traffic
Public social posts record delegation visits to the stand, including an Egyptian defence delegation, alongside domestic procurement and industry visitors.
Chief of the Naval Staff at the stand
Admiral Naveed Ashraf experiences the mixed-reality simulator; the visit is covered by trade media and circulated on LinkedIn and Facebook.
Where this sits in the story. IDEAS 2024 is the hinge between a domestic engineering record and an export-facing one. Everything FSDC showed in Istanbul and Dubai in 2025 was demonstrable in Karachi in 2024 — it just did not have a stand number abroad yet.
Related FSDC reading
- Rotary-wing simulators (Mi-17, H125/AS350, Enstrom)
- Mixed reality / VR / XR simulator engineering
- Mixed reality vs virtual reality
- VR & MR pilot training in Pakistan
- The full FSDC timeline
Frequently asked questions
What did FSDC show at IDEAS 2024?
A Hybrid VR Simulator and the Enstrom 280-FX MR SML mixed-reality simulator, from Hall 4, Stand D-30.
When and where was IDEAS 2024?
19–22 November 2024 at the Karachi Expo Centre — the 12th edition of Pakistan’s International Defence Exhibition and Seminar.
What is mixed reality in a simulator?
The real cockpit is composited into a virtual outside world through headset pass-through. Everything the pilot touches is physical; everything beyond the canopy is rendered.
Who visited the stand?
Trade coverage and public posts report a visit by Admiral Naveed Ashraf, Chief of the Naval Staff, who experienced the mixed-reality simulator.
Can we see these systems now?
Yes — request a demonstration or browse the brochure library.
Source register & coverage
Public references supporting this account of IDEAS 2024, grouped by platform.
