A couple of years ago I had a crazy idea for a feature story: to investigate if a pilot could be taught to fly a twin-engined aircraft using only a full-immersion flight simulator. The idea was to test how good these new-wave flight sims with wrap-around scenery and comfy seats actually were.
Their value in instrument training is pretty obvious at first glance: they are much more instinctive to use than the traditional instrument panel cocooned in a dark corner of the flying school. They’re also more fun, and they add into the scenario all the other little things that you have to think about in real life, like flying the aeroplane.
Technology like this has been around for years, but has been usually found installed in buildings with names like Qantas, Boeing or NASA painted on the facade; they were never within the economic reality of the average flying school. Now that has all changed, and the quality of simulation for training stalwarts like Barons, C182s and King Airs has taken massive leaps forward. Full-immersion flight sims are now being discovered in dedicated corners of the average weatherboard flying school building.
So what I wanted to do was test how good they were at simulating an aeroplane. However, my little project was pole-axed by a CFI who pointed out that the sim couldn’t be used for twin training because it couldn’t simulate the rudder forces of asymmetric flight. Move on … nothing to see here.
But I persisted for a little while longer and made some calls to find out why most of these sims are not fitted with Active Control Loading (ACL), known to most in the PC sim world as “force feedback”. The answer was a no-brainer: cost. It is expensive stuff and, as it was not needed to get CASA certification for the sim, flying schools were naturally passing up the option.
Only a few days ago the ATSB release its preliminary report into the tragic recent crash of the Embraer 120 ANB at Darwin. Although not complete (hence the “preliminary”), it is clearly leaning towards a loss of control during asymmetric flight. The manoeuvre is known as a V1-cut; the instructor fails one engine just after rotation. In this case, the simulation turned very real and the consequences were disastrous and irreversible.
This is the sort of training that needs to be conducted in the safety of a full-immersion simulator. It is a very sad fact that most of the crashes during asymmetric flight in Australia have occurred during training. There’s a message there: training can be as serious as the real thing. The decision to shut down a perfectly good engine should not be taken lightly, even if you are only practising. There are no practise crashes, only real ones.
CASA reacted. They informed the ATSB of a discussion paper released in December that is leading to an NPRM due any day now. The idea is to mandate sim training for aircraft involved in air transport operations, mostly regional turbo-props and up. For this training to be of any value, it will have to be done in a sim fitted with ACL, which most of that type would have anyway.
However, many asymmetric accidents have happened in four and six-place twins like Barons, Senecas, Seminoles and C310s. The drivers of these will have to go on doing it the hard and dangerous way because sims for this type are generally not fitted with ACL (there are a few in the country) and it is unlikely there ever will be until the flying schools recognise the value and safety in the capability.
Yes, it costs more … what in aviation doesn’t? But that cost can be recovered by reviewing the hourly charge on sim time, and no matter what the pilots have to pay, it is unlikely to be more than the cost of dual time in the aircraft anyway!
And the money buys you the ability to turn to the instructor and ask them to push the “reset” button after you have lost control and ploughed into a gum tree.
May your gauges always be in the green,
Hitch