It seems to me that the new fad for deliberately setting up a startle or surprise event is counter- productive and contrary to good instructional technique. Call it practicing bleeding if you like. What is the point of practicing being frightened or startled? It already happens numerous times in everyday life including flying.
None of us want to be embarrased in the SIM, but we all should be capable of reacting correctly.
The difference between giving someone an unbriefed Static blockage, and demonstrating the same fault with ‘pattering’, is that in the first case, the pilot is shocked into realising that they perhaps did not spot the error or take the correct action; so they get sweaty with the thought of what could have happened in the real aircraft. This will hopefully spur them on to revise instrument failures, revise their instrument scan, and perhaps even bring instrument failures into their take-off brief.
With the second ‘non surprise’ method it is too easy to subconsciously think ‘yeah, I would have spotted that, and done the right thing’.
Being confused or startled in the SIM might help us make sure that if that fault ever occurs for real, we will recognise it and take the correct action. I am not proposing SIMs that consist of a series of nightmare subtle but dangerous failures - resulting in pilots who don’t have the confidence to even walk, let alone fly a plane - but I think it would be very useful to experience some instrument failures on a regular basis to keep our knowledge fresh. Being shown a Static blockage in the SIM some years’ ago and never since then, does not keep it fresh in the mind.
Perhaps a non jeopardy section in each SIM should consist of a couple of instrument failures each, non briefed and random, just to keep our skills fresh and ensure that if it all goes wrong, we automatically revert to pitch + power = performance.