Playing at character actors in the simulator

[sheppey]

Many years ago, the British Airline Pilots Association ran an article in their magazine about play-acting in simulator training/testing. The author made the telling point he was not a professionally trained actor yet he, in the pretend aircraft (simulator), had to talk convincingly to pretend air traffic controllers, flight attendants, dispatchers, passengers, and fire rescue crews.

During the course of an instrument rating test in a Boeing 707 simulator in which the testing officer was play acting all these fictitious characters, (including putting on a simulated female voice) the pilot under test was given an engine failure. The pilot handled the aircraft very well. However, at the subsequent debriefing, the check pilot running the simulator session criticised the pilot for not making simulated PA's to the fictitious FA's and passengers and to all and sundry other fictitious characters dreamt up by the instructor.

The Approved Testing Officer Manual states the Aim of the Command Instrument Flight Test is to allow the applicant to demonstrate their ability to exercise the privileges of the rating. In other words can he fly on instruments. CASA Form 645 includes three items that are not specifically restricted by tolerances in numbers. They are: Maintain safe orientation and aircraft separation. Demonstrate sound aircraft and engine handling. Demonstrate sound command judgement.

Nothing said about acting skill at talking to all the pretend people mentioned earlier. Already we see LOFT exercises where several unrelated and in most cases unlikely non-normals are slotted into weather or even passenger incapacitation heart attack or other illness events that call for imaginative acting by the pilot under test.

Are instructors playing too many gotcha games in simulators? And in the case of instrument rating tests, is it fair the pilot risks being written down for something that has absolutely nothing to do with flying skills - and that is character acting?

[Hempy]

I would suggest that it has nothing to do with 'acting' at all, and in fact that anyone who approaches serious simulator training with that approach is, indeed, an 'actor'. There is a reason companies pay a lot of money to add fidelity to simulators...to make it as much like 'real life' as possible. Surely then, a professional pilot would approach it with the same mentality? It's only 'acting' if you act, if you treat it like a real aeroplane, it is.

[Wally Mk2]

'Sheppey' I can see where yr coming from there & to some degree agree with you but the key word/s there in yr summary of events was "command judgement"
Now in the words of "Bud Tidwell" (the move 'The Castle') lets have a look at those two words 'Command Judgement' ('just cause' was the movie words or something to that effect).
What is Command judgment? Well I believe it should cover more than manipulative skills IE flying the machine, you can get a Monkey to do that!:-) It should be a 'package' for want of a better word, the ability as Capt to look at the whole picture of a non normal event inc keeping the CM in the loop, ATC & of course the Pax whom are really the least able to grasp the severity of say an engine fire etc. Sure we might have the best guy behind the wheel mankind has ever seen flying on one donk, no Hyd's, Batt's only & a 100 kt x-wind yet he gets it on the ground in one piece only to have the 250 pax scramble over the top of the few confused ill informed timid F/A's thru the doors down the slides into a raging fire simply 'cause the super Capt said zip about what was going on & what was his intentions where overall.

All fictitious I know at Sim level but again it's a package deal, judgement in a Sim with no peripheral stuff to go with it is almost verbatim & pretty straight fwd even with just a bit of study, that's never the issue but airborne where there is no 'stop button' it's a diff story at times & QF32 bares testimony to that.

Wmk2

[Judd]

For starters the CIR is not type sensitive. The test can be used in a light twin or airline jet transport scenario. Nowhere in CAO 40.2 which lays down the regulatory requirements for the CIR are any requirements that state cabin attendant and passenger PA's communications are an assessable mark in the CASA Form 645 or in the Head of Power CAO 40.2 and Appendix


Intercommunications between pilots and cabin crew or other ground personnel are assessed in other elements of a training organisation e.g the annual LOFT exercise which in an airline is a regulatory requirement. The LOFT check will contain the elements of recurrent programs with many scenarios addressed.


What is Command judgment? Well I believe it should cover more than manipulative skills IE flying the machine, you can get a Monkey to do that!:-) It should be a 'package' for want of a better word, the ability as Capt to look at the whole picture of a non normal event inc keeping the CM in the loop, ATC & of course the Pax whom are really the least able to grasp the severity of say an engine fire etc. Items 71,72 and 73 in the Instrument Rating Test Form 645 specifically deal with the technical aspect of operating the aircraft for the purposes of the CIR. Also non-technical and knowledge skills are included in the pre-cursor of the CIR test and tested in other checks and in many cases a Cyclic Program and/or LOFT program. The OP is correct in saying there is no legislative requirement to include cabin crew/passengers/company/ intercommunication in the conduct of a CIR test in a simulator.

[morno]

In a CAR217 organisation with a cyclic program, if my knowledge serves correct, you don't actually require to do a CIR renewal each year. Your CIR is automatically renewed by the organisation, simply by you being continually checked under the cyclic program.

So in that instance, yes, you are being assessed for communication between passengers, ATC, cabin crew.

If you're flying a high capacity jet, why should you not demonstrate your ability to handle other crew etc.?

morno

[FGD135]

... is it fair the pilot risks being written down for something that has absolutely nothing to do with flying skills - and that is character acting?
No, it is not fair. There are limits to which "pretend" scenarios can induce the same pilot responses that would be shown when the scenario is real, and this little reality should be taken into account during testing.


The sim session is not testing the pilot's abilities to pretend - it is testing his abilities to reproduce his training.


In the case of that 707 sim session, to make the announcements to the imaginary cabin crew and passengers would have required the pilot to pretend, but pretending is not something he has been trained to do!


That pilot would have had every right to demand "pretending" training!


... putting on a simulated female voiceThat was just silly, and rather than making the scenario more realistic, would have served to constantly remind the pilots that the scenario was not real - thus making realistic actions and responses less and less likely.

[Captain Stoobing]

In my experience as a CASA Delegate and Check Pilot the flying skills crew show are generally pretty good. I have not had to get a crew member to repeat a V1 cut for quite sometime, but what I do see is an overall lack of flight management skills.

For me in 8 years of Sim and aircraft checking you develop a sense of providing realism whilst at the same time trying to keep a crew calm. Sim-itis is well and truly alive in most flight crew so sometimes a little bit of acting on our behalf can put them at ease. A good checkie will know when it is appropriate and when to put the personality away and be conservative in their conduct.

To require crews to fully consider all management aspects of a flight during a check is not asking too much, including PA's , cabin crew briefs etc.

Flight management skills are hard to acquire and even harder to retain as these skills come into play when stuff goes wrong, which is quite rare.

How crew manage QRH's, cabin crew, PA's to the pax and ATC / fire services etc all need regular practice and thoughtful consideration outside of a cyclic. It is about getting our crews to realise that the "real world" doesn't end with the words "exercise complete" ; it can drag on for what seems like an eternity.

A degree of realism , running sometimes beyond a script, can help aircrew build a picture that will help them in a real life emergency situation provided the rules of operation permit it or the crew are briefed that their assessment finishes at a point and anything beyond that is training only.

It is, after all, called a Cyclic Training and proficiency program