The conclusion we are forced to come to given the conflict between resources and requirements is that we have to compromise. That means that we recognise that HC is right about training for extremely remote (black swan even) events and focus what little we have in the way of training budget on building RESILIENCE.
Resilience is going to be the new watchword because we cannot train pilots to practice every one of the close to 300 failure modes the new generation of helicopters is capable of generating. It's pointless to even try for the machine is capable of throwing up just as many that aren't even in the manuals.
The current training and testing methods are incapable of either delivering resilience or propagating it for they are generic and do not, for the most part relate to the daily work environment.
Scenario based training is the key for it allows (a suitably trained instructor/examiner) to see beneath the veneer of acceptability and get a feel for the underlying competency.
After doing the same exercises with close to 400 students I can tell pretty quickly if they will have the kind of resilience I am talking about. By exposing those that are weak in this respect to mind-developing, skill-expanding scenarios with comprehensive post-flight discussions we can raise the standards across the board and replace mind-numbing irrelevance with focussed, challenging and high quality training and testing.
There is only one hurdle to overcome, and it's a big one. The sharp end of aviation management is dominated by individuals who have never taught in a modern flight simulator day in day out so they need to understand something very important. The simulator is not a magic box, you don't send people to 'the box, put them inside, set the timer for two hours then when the 'dinger' goes 'ding' bring them out 'cured'. What makes the difference is what goes on inside the box out of sight of everyone but the three people inside. The quality of training is totally dependent on the quality of the instructor and his instruction. To achieve high quality the SFI/SFE needs to be valued, trained to a high standard, and given the recognition and respect by management that they truly deserve.
Happy New Year
G.
