Aircraft Technical Recurrent Training

[Capt Pit Bull]

I'm interested in peoples perceptions of, and attitude to, the recurrent training they undergo on aircraft systems.

i.e. some form of theoretical training that is undergone in addition to simulator time.

What does your company do? Is it interesting and relevant, or just a box ticking exercise? Do you buy into the value of it, as embodied at your organisation? What do you like / dislike about it?

Its something I've been thinking about recently and would be interested in the opinions of others, if anyone has the time to jot down a few lines.

Thanks,

pb

[WaterMeths]

Well from my own experience I have found the "extra stuff" we do as a company highlights topical stuff that has arisen on the line, and for that reason alone it is very informative and interesting.

Thats a generalisation but I hope it answers your question as you requested it.

Cheers

WM.

[fantom]

Well, what my Co does is make the pilots attend an annual day in school and answer an annual quiz.

The day in school is under the guidance of dedicated pilots (they have been appointed as tech instructors) and we minions are rostered to attend.

Every session is excellent. You can't fail to appreciate the value of their stuff. I am certain they make up most of it.

The quiz if different; too difficult by far. They make that up, also.

[Capt Pit Bull]

Thanks for the replies folks. Any more?

My own experiences have been less happy. Certainly, once you reach the sim, the odds are that the trainer knows his stuff and the session is very useful, albeit largely filled with boxs that must be ticked for the regulators, leaving scant time for general refresher training or any areas of concern.

But as far as theoretical refresher before reaching the sim, I've been very dissapointed. Usually some form of multiple choice paper filled with obscure questions that take ages to track down and seem to have very little practical relevance.

Also, I've generally been on a 3 year recurrent cycle. 3 years seems a long time between visits on each system. Not that I object (in principle) to getting the books out on my own time every now and then, but it does seem a bit annoying when you're also spending a lot of time finding out irrelevant stuff.

pb

[virgo]

I used to help accomplish the annual tech. refreshers and we based the delivery on technical problems that had occured over the previous year.......
eg, if the fleet had an assymetric flap problem, we'd spend a bit of time reviewing the system. Also, if other operators had experienced an interesting technical problem we'd look at that in some detail.
Although it looked a bit like bolting the door after the horse had gone, we were able to work from a factual base on what, why and when it happened and most importantly, advice and suggestions (over and above the approved procedures) if it, or something similar, happened in the future.

Although inevitably most crew looked upon the Tech Refresher as an interruption to their days off, most said they'd found it interesting, useful and enjoyable at the end of the day(s).

[downsouth]

As for me, in my co is a bit tedious... It takes one whole week (monday to friday 9am to 6pm) once a year... We review a few systems every year and also we have a few lessons on dangerous goods, hi-jack, performances, weather, regulations, CRM, operational safety (where we review the figures taken from FOQUA on the last semester) and Emergency (how many people fit in a life raft? what does a halon fire ext. look like, etc...).

Honestly, the systems part which is done on a computer with a CBT , and then a quiz of each system, is ok as far as you haven't opened the books recently... The rest, is ticking the box, although you maight find something intresting out of all those five days...

I don't mind doing it... specially on Monday, but on wednesday I'm quite bored already and then on friday i'm totally depressed... it feels like working in an office...

Bye

[AirRabbit]

Although it looked a bit like bolting the door after the horse had gone...
The only unnecessary aspect of "bolting the door after the horse has gone" would be if that were the only horse you had.

[AltFlaps]

The company I work for - mainline 737 operator sends out tech quizes via email which are then checked by a TRE as part of the OPC/LPC sim brief.

The questions are VERY in depth and cause you to get the books out. Subjects are as per the tri-annual NOTECHS.

System seems to work well, but there is still nothing like being in a classroom with a whiteboard ...

[Thridle Op Des]

We used to do two days classroom before every six month sim check, this was reduced to one day, then nothing.

In it's place we were given access to an online CBT course which focused on the particular phase in question, six phases, every six months covering the whole syllabus over three years. The CBT was produced by a 'well known' Canadian company which specialises in this kind of thing.

Pros:
Standard content delivery.
Saves a lot of Pilot Man Hours=Money
Standard measurable testing for the authorities.

Cons:
No interface with an experienced technical instructor which frequently delivered very interesting exchanges with other pilots as to the issues they faced on line.
Very Boring - it seems that CBT producers recruit individuals who excel in very flat delivery.
Resentment from some of the pilot group because the study has to be done in their own time, leading to low 'absorption' - it's amazing how one can amuse oneself with experimental ploys to fool the CBT course into thinking you have looked at every page and listened to the text being painfully read out like a funeral oration.
Ours is 'Flash' based, possibly the most memory hungry app in the book (IMHO) - doesn't work on Macs:(
The actual learning value is very low, I find typically only two or three "Oh Wow" thoughts during an online CBT, while a good tech instructor keeps the "Oh Wow' factor much higher.

The company recognised that a good tech instructor session was important and reinstated a half day session during the Safety Day, it's still not enough though and hardly scratches the surface.

[Capt Pit Bull]

AirRabbit <grin> excellently put.

Thridle Op Des. Interesting comment about Flash (I have one foot in I.T.). It's a system of choice for delivering web based CBT as its about as non platform specific as you can get, if someone has a web browser they can get the Flash plug in (if they haven't already). Consequently I'm surprised you can't use a Mac. As far as being memory hungry - well, for CBT, thats a lot to do with the resources and how they are managed. Flash in itelf is a small system overhead.

Thanks for the comments everyone.

pb

[Thridle Op Des]

Hi PB,

Yes I agree, Flash in it's own right is ideal, but what we have to put up with is very tedious. I have a Dell PC just to access the online CBT with about 300k broadband connection and it's painfully slow to watch it loading the audio file and graphic files. I was similarly suprised that the Mac would have an issue with Flash given the Adobe genesis but I have tried in both Mac OSX and Bootcamp/XP and get the same results. The odd thing is that I briefly used Mac Parallels and the CBT was happy to operate then, but Parallels and I had a falling out once I realised it took 30 minutes for an AutoCAD map file to load in Parallels (I know, I'm very impatient!)

I fired a query across to the Maccies on the net and a very knowledgeable bloke told me that this was a known issue, not resolvable as yet, I am looking to see if Lepoard will fix it - at least that will be my excuse for getting the update.

When we first went to the CBT system replacing the tech days, the company issued CD Roms with the programs and so it was offline and faster, but the down side was there was no way that an audit trail could be generated for pilot performance and the cost of issuing CDR's would have been substantial in comparison to the software guys who maintain the system for us (I guess)

Regards

TOD

[Capt Pit Bull]

When we first went to the CBT system replacing the tech days,

So do you now just grin and bear it?

Or do they bring you in to a training room?

[Thridle Op Des]

Grin and bear it is the only option we have, non-compliance leads to grounding and a tea/biccies episode. We are required to provide all our own IT (compatible computer and internet connection). This also assists in the general dislike of the system. Admittedly two days tech refresher was probably a bit excessive, but IMHO I believe the pendulum has swung a bit far right of Ghengis in this case. The company invites those who are not equipped with the appropriate equipment (!) to come in on a day off and complete the CBT.

Back to your original question: Tech refresher is a vital part of recurrence, it just need to be done well where there is some sort of non-financial value calculation to make the bean counters rule the day to the exception of all else. The whole presentation of non quantifiable benefits to the bottom line in regard to lower insurance rates, accident free history is a difficult play for any training department when fighting for their slice of the budget.

I'd be happy to provide any further me pm if you wish.