Simulator matrix requirements Australia vs. Overseas

[Willie Nelson]

Given the context of Air Asia's most recent crash and the AF 447 crash some years back, I have a question largely for those with non Australian jet operator experience:

Have you been involved in a simulator matrix program for recurrency training in line with most high capacity Australian carriers, notwithstanding Rex, whereby there is a three or four year matrix for various competencies? Or were you involved in a simpler system?

I ask because I recently heard of a major Asian international carrier that apparently does the same sim session every single time. I was wondering how commonplace this practice is within other parts of the industry and how better or worse we do things here?

For what it's worth my employer runs a four year matrix which is being shifted to an evidence based training program. Operating in the sheltered workshop of Australia I have little idea of how it compares. Thanks in advance.

[Ollie Onion]

I once was involved in a training program for the Dash8 Q400 where there were quite a few Japanese based crew going through the training. Their sim was so prescriptive that it dictated which engine you had to fail in each sequence.

[RUMBEAR]

Willie,

I agree with ollie onion. Maybe we worked together! The approach to training in Asia is significantly different to Australia. Maybe Australia is a little over the top, and Asia a little under?? one thing is certain that the western philosophy will focus on understanding core concepts while eastern philosophy will focus on selecting a finite number of core skills and use repetition to perfect them!

Several years ago I did a type rating with flight safety for a Japanese airline and the instructor made a comment at the end ( of the Japanese syllabus ), "if you ever have an engine failure at V1 you will have no problems! Hope you don't have any other failures!"

I think that pretty much sums it up!

[The Green Goblin]

It is true.

Once you get through the six month TR and intensive line training, memorise all the useless BS, it's the same sim once a year over and over.

[Centaurus]

Interestingly, one of the Australian cyclic (three year?) simulator sessions conducted in the 737 series aircraft used to be Loss of Thrust on Both Engines. The QRH condition included "Both of These Occur; Both engines have a loss of thrust and loss of thrust lever response from both engines." The Objective is to restart at least one engine. There are six pages.

The QRH assumes at least one engine start is successful. While that is comforting to know, it conveniently disregards the fact that if neither engine start is successful, the crew are faced with a dead-stick forced landing and no published advice how to accomplish it. There have been several documented incidents where a jet transport has lost power in all engines and made successful forced landings. For example a Garuda 737 suffered dual flameouts in a thunderstorm penetration and was forced to ditch flapless. Miraculously only one person died in that accident. The Air Canada Boeing 767 that ran out of fuel and forced landed on an abandoned airstrip (again no flaps) near Gimli in Canada, is another example of superb flying skill. The captain later commented he wished Air Canada could have trained for dead stick landings in the simulator.

See this report: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garuda_Indonesia_Flight_421

Are there any operators who include forced landing with no engine power in their cyclic simulator training? It is surprising that CASA has not thought of mandating this sequence as part of cyclic training, especially as no published advice to crews is available in manufacturer's operations manuals. A head-in-the sand approach to flight safety, perhaps? := Make no mistake about it. A dead stick landing is a mighty serious event and requires superb airmanship to pull it off successfully. The best place for practice is in the simulator.

[rmcdonal]

Are there any operators who include forced landing with no engine power in their cyclic simulator training? We did a ditching exercise once after the Hudson incident. Double engine failure at about 400ft after take off. Not sure it was a matrix requirement, and we have not done it since. Some of the sim checkies will let you take it for a glide after the check if you feel that way inclined.

[Judd]

Some of the sim checkies will let you take it for a glide after the check if you feel that way inclined.
And therein lies the whole problem with many simulator check pilots or simulator instructors.

What could be conservatively called "Killer items" such as unusual attitude recoveries in IMC and in the above case, total failure of all engines resulting in a forced landing without power, is seen as a jolly hockey-sticks `fun`exercise quickly slipped in at the end of a session when everyone wants to go home.

Although this quickie type of exercise is not quite a waste of time, a comprehensive briefing on these sequences before the session starts, is a necessity if anything is to be learned that stays in the pilot's mind.

Depending on what altitude is chosen for a double engine failure in a twin, and 20,000 feet is logical if a CB penetration (e.g.Garuda) caused the loss of thrust both engines, then at least 10 minutes of gliding and associated positioning for the forced landing is needed to complete the exercise. If the first attempt results in a crash due to undershooting or overshooting then allow a further 15 minutes for the instructor to re-position back to 20 grand for another go.

These times need to be built into the simulator programme if the whole exercise is to be taken as a serious training exercise. in today's box ticking environment in simulators, it is doubtful if ops managers will allow that time. Of course current lengthy LOFT exercises could be cut in order to allow the killer items to be trained. Depends on what you consider is the priority. Manual flying skill or scratching your head in the simulator deciding where to divert in a medical emergency

[Runaway Gun]

After two comprehensive conversion courses on large multi engine jets, and numerous currency rides, I almost had to beg to try an all engines out PFL. Instructor gave me a go at the end of the scheduled sortie with an encouraging "You won't make it." I did land safely, but it was shrugged off as a jolly by the instructor.

[Willie Nelson]

Ollie Onion said:

Their sim was so prescriptive that it dictated which engine you had to fail in each sequence.

I wonder, if in relation to QZ8501, this sort of 'training program' may have set the guys up to feel that they have all the essential skills to fly most situations. In fact, with hindsight there were obvious and clear deficiencies on many aspects of their flight management.

I've heard about the Japanese Q400 sim that you talk of and I think I might be able to guess the company too. I'm wondering if at some point this type of sim might have to be dumped and replaced with a better system? My understanding is that the outfit you referred to insist on perfection for said sim, given that it is the same every time, this seems useless on the face of it, maybe there's something I'm missing.

We don't have all the answers in Oz but for all the failings of our CAR 217 programs I always walk out feeling like I've learned something new, and gained greater confidence in some bread and butter skills.

Judd said:

Although this quickie type of exercise is not quite a waste of time, a comprehensive briefing on these sequences before the session starts, is a necessity if anything is to be learned that stays in the pilot's mind.

I take your point but I'm not sure nothing would be learned without a full brief.

Rather than Jolly Hockey Sticks Fun as you say, If we take the case with Air Asia, one of the most critical aspects of this was that nobody was flying the plane. If on a training day for example, you said to the guys: at some point we'll have a major failure, get yourself to a safe point in space and get the ball rolling (QRH, ECAM, EICAS or whatever)...once started and it is obvious that the PF is on the job and able to direct an appropriate level of attention to requests from the PM...end of exercise.

While accurate and skilful SOPs are Important, keeping the thing upright is not optional. Surely a basic competency such as this is not unreasonable to expect. I'm confident that my colleagues would handle it on their worst day, albeit some would be slower to react than others.

We do this type of random variation in the event of go arounds and engine failures on takeoff or RTO's. This type of training certainly seems to be more pressing at least on the Bus as recent history has demonstrated. A good checkie will always allow for nerves versus lack of competency.

I'm not able to find any reference in the QZ8501 to the nature of their C and T program other than to say stalls were assessed as unesessary and CRM apparently was graded. Can anybody add to this?

No doubt, I'm going to cop a pasting for my suggestion and maybe given what we already do in Australia it would perhaps be overkill. I'm not in checking but I'm interested in others thoughts, particularly those that are?

[Centaurus]

other than to say stalls were assessed as unesessary

Talking to a well placed Cathay crew member the other day, I am told the British CAA no longer require require unusual attitude recovery in IPC's. More dumbing down of original well proven exercises once considered an essential item in instrument rating tests. More's the pity especially as low experience pilots hiring becomes the norm.

Maybe Regulators should reflect upon the adage "Good judgement comes from experience and a lot of that comes from bad judgement."

[flyhardmo]

Maybe Regulators should reflect upon the adage "Good judgement comes from experience and a lot of that comes from bad judgement."

There's a problem with that Centaurus. Cost..Hiring low experience pilots are cheaper as they are willing to work for less or pay for type/line training. Regulators these days tend to be influenced by bigger companies dictating how they would like the rules varied for their cost benefit.
Risk analysis has become a cost/risk analysis with more emphasis on reducing costs to gain bigger bonuses. Even recent major accidents hasn't swayed any CAA's into action except the FAA.

[josephfeatherweight]

I am uncomfortable with the "box-ticking" mentality of regulated, recurrent sim training. In the FAA world, the recurrent sim is the definitive "box ticking" situation.
I have a bit of a bugbear with the V1 cut exercise - it's just so canned, with no opportunity to expand the scope. For example, I believe an engine failure immediately after rotate (lose external cues) when you pitch into the white can be significantly more challenging than controlling the yaw on the ground, sorting yourself out, and happily climbing away.
The one that really gets my goat is the requirement to conduct an airborne relight. When, ever, are you going to relight an engine that has unexpectedly stopped working? These engines DO NOT just stop - if they have stopped, there's a good reason for it, and I'm not going to pump fuel into it. The only reasons I can think of may be inadvertent shutdown, extreme rain (snuffed out), maybe extreme icing or volcanic ash.
As discussed above by other contributors, sim time is valuable, and in the private world anyway, only every 12 months. Wasting time on unrealistic, dare I say "old-fashioned" scenarios, is frustrating.

[Willie Nelson]

Josephfeatherweight said:

Wasting time on unrealistic, dare I say 'old fashioned' scenarios is frustrating.

Hence the move by my low cost carrier to move towards evidence based training scenarios, in fact in the last two sims we have done exactly the exercise that you talk of where by an engine is lost once airborne but less than 100 feet so the autopilot has not yet been selected on.

I think it would be silly to ditch the V1 cut altogether as this is one of the prime concepts that transport category certification is based upon but I agree there are fare more worthy exercises to emphasise when building a pilots skill set.

Centaurus, I'm not sure about the UK CAA and their requirement for UA assessment but I know that CX still does it. They don't do it in their IPC but they do it in their training exercise which is every other six months so it's more or less the same as most jet operators here is Oz albeit their program is set out a little differently. Perhaps it's this difference between what regulators are insisting upon as a minimum and what some airlines are or are not doing that is indeed the problem.

Does anybody actually know what sort of sim program Air Asia has been running up there?

[josephfeatherweight]

Hence the move by my low cost carrier to move towards evidence based training scenarios, in fact in the last two sims we have done exactly the exercise that you talk of where by an engine is lost once airborne but less than 100 feet so the autopilot has not yet been selected on.

I think it would be silly to ditch the V1 cut altogether as this is one of the prime concepts that transport category certification is based upon but I agree there are fare more worthy exercises to emphasise when building a pilots skill set.

Evidence based training scenarios - sounds like some good progress.
Yes, I too agree that we shouldn't ditch the V1 cuts - probably sounded like that in my original post, apologies. Cheers!