Originally Posted by
john_tullamarine
Or am I just an old dinosaur sort of instructor and over the hill ?
No not at all. I think the sometimes grueling 2 hour brief/4 hours in the box is part legacy from the old days of beating up on pilots in the sim, and part keeping the training "efficient" from the perspective of schedulers and accountants. Breaking up sim sessions into more but shorter sessions is better from a teaching perspective, but more complicated and potentially expensive (i.e. a pilot in training is a pilot not flying a revenue flight) than the current method.
My biggest critique of our training over the years is that 1) they continue to try to stuff 8 pounds of training in a 5 pound sack, and 2) everything has become so scripted and so well advertised in advance that anyone going into the box who doesn't know exactly what the events will be, in what order, and what the desired response should be simply wasn't paying much attention. Way too much, check the box, reset the sim, and move on to the next event for my tastes. This approach may be sufficient to aviators who make an honest effort to keep current in the books and turn off all the automation and hand-fly or a regular basis, but not so much for the "A/P on at 500' and back off inside the marker, what's for dinner, and what should we do on the layover" crowd.