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Old 28th Jun 2009, 11:06
  #2447 (permalink)  
A37575
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Australia
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I'm a fan of simulators but having lost arguments in the past about nice-to-have, training we have to face the reality of prioritization and availability of pilots for unique training
It is more the case that some of those in flight standards chairs are simply out of touch with real life accidents over the years. How many of these people assiduously read accident reports published in various journals such as Flight International, Aviation Week, Business & Commercial Aviation, NTSB and AAIB accident reports and a host of excellent readily available flight safety reading matter?

If they did, then they would surely see the need to be proactive (hate the term, but most people seem to know what it means nowadays) and re-organise simulator training to learn from those accidents. Instead, we see the same old same old of long winded LOFT's where a disproportionate amount of scarce simulator time is spend "managing" a long winded series of unlikely scenarios involving dragging out the MEL, then follows lots of taxiing and a still more long winded take off briefing covering every possible "threat" and how to "manage" the threat.

For Heaven's sake - LOFT occurs every time we get airborne in the real aeroplane. How much more practice do we need in the simulator for LOFT? What a waste of precious simulator time when the more serious things that can kill you are seen as low priority "fun" exercises consigned to the last few minutes of a sim session - if one is lucky.

Obviously jet upset training for example is seen as a waste of time - same as regular practice at limiting crosswind landings on slippery runways which take real handling skill that few new first officers have at this point in their line flying.

Until flight standards people and regulators realise that the lessons learned from past accidents should be applied to simulator training, then pilots will continue to turn up each few months to the same old bog standard engine failures at V1, all automatics flight and general relaxed button pushing - and then just watch whatever real handling skills they may have once had, just slowly disappear in the fog of complacency.
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