PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Use of simulator time and new ICAO sim standards

AirRabbit · 15th July 2009, 23:10

Hey GarageYears

First, thanks for recognizing that I wasn’t presuming that our friend (lefthanddownabit) was in need of any pointed lectures – of course, if he took any of my comments that way, I certainly want to extend my most sincere apologies. It was only because I have some knowledge in this area that I decided to provide anyone interested with some information on the subject – and in doing so, I was thinking that rather than offer comments in a teasing manner, I’d tell anyone who might be interested what the facts are about this particular subject. I didn’t mean for it to come off like a lecture – just presenting the facts ma’am.

I think you are abolutely correct about the FAA and their intentions. Of course until we actually see something in writing there is always a bit of conjecture about what any regulator is going to do, and the FAA certainly doesn’t have a particular corner on that market.

lefthanddownabit makes some good points about certain simulators currently in service – and no one would want to see them disappear completely. However, with the computer industry expanding like it is, it won’t be long before it will have an even greater impact on the aviation industry – particularly the training parts, and most specifically, those parts having to do with flight simulators. Additionally, keeping older simulators up to spec is becoming increasingly difficult - particularly in light of the falling prices of brand new simualtors and simulator systems. In fact, according to the FAA’s website, out of almost 800 active simulators there are something like 25 – 30 of them that are not Level C or Level D. And, if I’m reading that material correctly, it doesn’t appear that very many Level C simulators are entering the inventory on a permanent basis. It seems that the most sophisticated simulator (Level D) and a couple of levels of the smaller flight training devices, are what is desired most by the training industry – and that, too, is reflected in the ICAO documents. Of the seven types of ICAO devices all but the top two are fixed-base devices – without motion – but all of them have a pretty sophisticated visual system – and all the visual systems will be equipped with at least that same 200-degree FOV presentation we discussed the other day. The lower level devices are designed primarily to address PPL and CPL training – again, probably channeled very much along the lines of the ICAO defined MPL training process.

I also know that one of the reasons that this particular effort was undertaken was that, despite the industry’s familiarity with levels of simulators and flight training devices, there was a wide range of differences between many of them – so the familiarity wasn’t so familiar when it came right down to the specific device. Additionally, without there being an accepted standard, some simulator owners who leased time on a simulator to several organizations from various countries, had to endure the evaluation of that one simulator by the regulatory authorities in each of the respective countries. According to the material on the Royal Aeronautical Society’s website, at the moment, there are apparently some 27 or 28 different levels of simulation that range from table top instrument trainers to the top-of-the-line Level D simulator in service around the world. By any argument 7 levels has to be better than almost 30 – and if all the regulators can get past the personalizations involved, it just might allow one evaluation of a simulator to satisfy all the regulatory authorities’ need to be sure the thing works properly.

15th July 2009, 23:10	#32 (permalink)
AirRabbit Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Southeast USA Posts: 326	Hey GarageYears First, thanks for recognizing that I wasn’t presuming that our friend (lefthanddownabit) was in need of any pointed lectures – of course, if he took any of my comments that way, I certainly want to extend my most sincere apologies. It was only because I have some knowledge in this area that I decided to provide anyone interested with some information on the subject – and in doing so, I was thinking that rather than offer comments in a teasing manner, I’d tell anyone who might be interested what the facts are about this particular subject. I didn’t mean for it to come off like a lecture – just presenting the facts ma’am. I think you are abolutely correct about the FAA and their intentions. Of course until we actually see something in writing there is always a bit of conjecture about what any regulator is going to do, and the FAA certainly doesn’t have a particular corner on that market. lefthanddownabit makes some good points about certain simulators currently in service – and no one would want to see them disappear completely. However, with the computer industry expanding like it is, it won’t be long before it will have an even greater impact on the aviation industry – particularly the training parts, and most specifically, those parts having to do with flight simulators. Additionally, keeping older simulators up to spec is becoming increasingly difficult - particularly in light of the falling prices of brand new simualtors and simulator systems. In fact, according to the FAA’s website, out of almost 800 active simulators there are something like 25 – 30 of them that are not Level C or Level D. And, if I’m reading that material correctly, it doesn’t appear that very many Level C simulators are entering the inventory on a permanent basis. It seems that the most sophisticated simulator (Level D) and a couple of levels of the smaller flight training devices, are what is desired most by the training industry – and that, too, is reflected in the ICAO documents. Of the seven types of ICAO devices all but the top two are fixed-base devices – without motion – but all of them have a pretty sophisticated visual system – and all the visual systems will be equipped with at least that same 200-degree FOV presentation we discussed the other day. The lower level devices are designed primarily to address PPL and CPL training – again, probably channeled very much along the lines of the ICAO defined MPL training process. I also know that one of the reasons that this particular effort was undertaken was that, despite the industry’s familiarity with levels of simulators and flight training devices, there was a wide range of differences between many of them – so the familiarity wasn’t so familiar when it came right down to the specific device. Additionally, without there being an accepted standard, some simulator owners who leased time on a simulator to several organizations from various countries, had to endure the evaluation of that one simulator by the regulatory authorities in each of the respective countries. According to the material on the Royal Aeronautical Society’s website, at the moment, there are apparently some 27 or 28 different levels of simulation that range from table top instrument trainers to the top-of-the-line Level D simulator in service around the world. By any argument 7 levels has to be better than almost 30 – and if all the regulators can get past the personalizations involved, it just might allow one evaluation of a simulator to satisfy all the regulatory authorities’ need to be sure the thing works properly.