Zft
I was recently talking to some co-workers about the fine quality of various simulators which we had used and we were all saying "why are these things getting certified like this?" Much the same conversation points that we have had here.
Eventually one of the FAA standards folks arrived on the scene. Now this is a company employed person who is also an FAA check airman. His take on some of this foolishness basically came down to the following:
Yes the standards are that all systems MUST perform exactly like the real aircraft, and yes handling and control forces must match the real aircraft, etc. Them's the rules! HOWEVER as with so many things in the good old USA the rules only apply as far as your lobby group can prevent them from reaching. Therefore in the case of the world's second largest sim manufacturerer, which is based in the states, and which has HUGE political clout, a lot more gets by than some other manufacturers. For instance a Canadian built sim would not be certified nearly so easily as an American built one. Of course, once a sim gets the FAA's level D stamp you can't really argue that it isn't right, even if in fact it isn't right. A straw vote around the office made it quite clear that my recent experiences with the sim downunder were really nothing when compared to some of the supposed "level D" sims currently operating in the states. Senior training captains talked about being barely able to fly some of these machines, and having malfunctions that barely resembled the actual aircraft systems. Of course once the FAA says okay, an awful lot of other authorities tend to pull out the old rubber stamp and let fly automatically.
Obviously in asia, as in Canada, and other places where the FAA holds much less influence, we can demand and get these more or less utopian ideals about sim training. What you and I expect as basic levels of service are only pipe dreams where lobby dollars and politics are introduced into the equation!
Has anybody else gotten a sense of this?