Hi Bergerie1 – first, let me offer my most sincere “thanks” for the very nice compliment … and second, your comment that “It is very hard to separate basic ergonomic factors from learned personal preferences that have become ingrained from years of training and use” is another way of precisely saying the same point I was trying to make.
I am fully aware of (well … maybe not “fully aware, ” but certainly knowledgeable about…) the extent to which airplane cockpit designers go to provide complete and accurate information to the occupants of those cockpits – and, in addition to the amount of information provided, these professionals strive diligently to make that information easily recognizable and immediately useful to those pilots. As I have noted in many of my previous posts in this forum, in my somewhat sordid past, I’ve had the opportunity to see and work with, and for, some of the finest pilot instructors I’ve ever known – and in that process perhaps the most valuable concept to which I was introduced was to find a way to allow the student to use the preferences he/she has come to know and understand to perform any specific task.
The point I had to understand, and to which I had to be willing to commit, was that doing this caused my expenditure of time, effort, and awareness to “skyrocket.” While I readily acknowledge that it is certainly possible that I had to work harder at instructing than did my counterparts … it is equally true that the more I did it, the more I came to recognize that each of the instructors I observed and learned from, also worked very hard to achieve any notable success. The good thing was that when a student’s “light bulb” finally illuminated, I usually felt better than did the student! All of which is to say that ... when you recognize what the student has actually assimilated (not merely regurgitated) the satisfaction far outweighs any thought of "work"
The problem I see today is that instructors often wholly and absolutely depend on the training syllabus (i.e., the lesson plan) and, much to my chagrin and even greater disappointment, the training equipment itself, to “teach” the student what he/she needs to know. What instructors must come to understand is that a fully qualified pilot doesn’t just “happen” at the completion of a training “program” simply by having completed that program. Perhaps the 2 most important things a pilot instructor must know and must know how to address are the following:
1) The structure of a competent training program must include what a pilot must know, what skills a pilot must possess, and what rules a pilot must follow … and all of that has to fit into what that pilot can understand and use – and do so correctly … when things go as planned and when the plan goes askew (i.e., amiss, muddled, twisted, off-center, or just plain wrong); and
2) The flight simulator doesn’t “know” anything – and when such equipment is used without the direct involvement and oversight of a qualified, competent, and relatively experienced instructor, the result is likely only to exacerbate any unwanted and ill-conceived conclusions imaginable by an innovative novice pilot! Toward this end we all MUST recognize that an important aspect of "simulator use" is that merely having the student complete each of the tasks contained in the “syllabus-for-the-day,” even satisfactorily, is no guarantee that the student pilot will have learned what is necessary, will have practiced what is important, or will be able to satisfactorily perform in the real world in a similar set of circumstances.
Therefore, my friend, your comment…
Originally Posted by Bergerie1
I am sure there is a huge amount of research information on the interesting topics that are being discussed in this thread which AirRabbit could direct us to.
…can only be addressed by referring anyone interested to the on-going UK’s Royal Aeronautical Society’s efforts … 2 of which are described below:
Tuesday 23 September
INTERNATIONAL FLIGHT CREW TRAINING CONFERENCE 2014
The International Pilot Training Consortium: Next Steps?
The Annual International Flight Crew Training Conference is a premier event in the Royal Aeronautical Society’s annual calendar. The 2014 Conference on Tuesday 23, Wednesday 24 and Thursday 25 September at the Society’s Headquarters in London will examine the work undertaken by the International Pilot Training Consortium (IPTC) and seek to determine what further work is required and under what auspices it should be conducted.
Wednesday 12 November
The Future of Flight Training Devices
The objectives of this conference are to examine the recent advances made in the design and use of this class of devices and to identify specific areas of simulation design and data provisioning that requires future enhancement so that further training capabilities and fidelity can be realised.