Is Your Life Worth More Than Airline Profits? (w/Guest Charles Sauer)

[thomhartmann]

Thom and libertarian Charles Sauer discuss a proposed change in rules for commercial pilots which would mean would be pilots could train in simulators rather than in actual air crafts, the airlines will save money on this deal but is it safer?

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[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Guess what: Commercial pilots already train in simulators.

They have for years. The simulators themselves are highly regulated by the FAA to replicate the exact flight characteristics and system malfunctions of the aircraft itself, and those regulations are about as strict as the ones that govern actual airplanes. At major airlines a pilot who is transitioning to another airplane or a new hire pilot will be trained on entirely on a simulator, and that pilot's first flight in the actual airplane he or she was trained on will be a revenue flight carrying passengers. This is the way airlines have trained pilots for at least 30 years, or ever since the technology improved enough that accurate simulation was possible. I've spent a fair amount of time in full-motion flight simulators, and they are hair-raisingly realistic. They are also extremely expensive, and their programming and maintenance isn't cheap either.

Beginning pilot training should be in a real airplane, of course; these are typically something like a Cessna 172. It would be more expensive to design and build an accurate C-172 simulator than to buy the actual airplane so I don't see that ever happening. But if airlines used the real thing for training nobody would ever be able to afford a plane ticket again.

[Major Nikon]

3. Did you also find the video hard to watch?

I didn't make it past the first few seconds.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. Yeah, I gave up on it. It was apparent Hartmann doesn't know

what he's talking about.

[Major Nikon]

2. Geez, there's so much ignorance in this video it's impossible to watch

I didn't make it past the first few seconds.

First of all, it's not the COMMERCIAL rating they are talking about it's the AIRLINE TRANSPORT PILOT rating. So right away anyone with any sense of what is being discussed knows this is nonsense.

Next, the "airlines" already do most of their pilot training on simulators and have for decades. So guess what happens once you get the ATP rating and go to work for the airlines? You train in simulators to get your type rating(s), and you can (and most do) become fully certified in the aircraft without ever even having seen the actual aircraft.

Such is the nature of level D simulators which are incredibly realistic, and the training received in them is SUPERIOR to actual aircraft training because you can do things in a simulator you'd never want to do in an actual aircraft.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. Exactly right.

That used to be my job. We'd train pilots to handle all kinds of emergencies and system failures that would have been unsafe even to demonstrate in an airplane. Some of these situations can be simulated quite effectively even in level B and C simulators, which have lower standards of motion and visual displays, but you can throw them something like an electrical or hydraulic system failure or a flight instrument failure, make them run the checklist and handle whatever configuration changes are necessary. The type ride is always in a level D simulator and it will be scenario-based, but will cover certain kinds of emergencies or malfunctions as approved by the FAA. Yes, the training in a simulator is far superior to anything that could be safely done in the real airplane. You're not going to be failing an engine on takeoff, or "simulating" a dual engine failure, or shutting down a flight management computer in a real airplane without causing a very dangerous situation.

[Major Nikon]

6. Even at the private pilot stage, some of the training can be done in simulators

Simulators are and always will be an integral part of pilot training. This will only increase in the future, and it's a good thing for aviation.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

8. As the technology improves there will be more use of simulation.

When I learned to fly some 30 years ago there wasn't much of it - my flight school had a clunky instrument sim that was a PITA to use and was more frustrating to set up and manage than it was worth. The new ones are far better, and are very good for instrument training (which a lot more of should be done at the PPL level). But I just don't see anybody coming up with a full-motion level D C-172 sim; that would be almost as expensive to design and build as an airliner sim when you consider having to program all the flight characteristics and possible failures. And the newer light aircraft have pretty complex electronic systems that would have to be included.

[Major Nikon]

9. Level D sims cost several million $ each

They are also expensive to operate. So yes, they will never replace all training at the lower initial pilot training levels, but they will increasingly be used for more advanced training.

This is certainly not a bad thing as the OP suggests.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

10. 10 years ago a new level D sim cost about $22 million.

That doesn't include the 3-story building you'll need to put it in.

[Major Nikon]

11. Compare that to logging time in a kite

Which so long as it has an airworthiness certificate is perfectly legal to log time in towards the ATP rating.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

7. There was a time when certain aspects of pilot recurrent training

was done by going up in real airplanes and performing whatever was deemed necessary for the training. Once or twice a year one of those planes would crash, sometimes because some rather tricky maneuver was being done. Sometime in the early 1970's airlines switched over to doing that training entirely in simulators.