Flight Simulator Fidelity Considerations for Total Air Line Pilot Training and Evaluation

 This paper presents the FAA/Volpe Center‟s Flight Simulator Fidelity Research Program, which is part of the Federal Aviation Administration's effort to promote the effectiveness, availability and affordability of flight simulators. This initiative will become increasingly critical with the anticipated regulatory changes mandating the use of simulators in airline pilot training and evaluation, dramatically reduced pilot new-hire experience levels and growing operational complexity. Two research areas with high pay-off potential for this effort are radio communications and platform motion simulation. Initial results suggest that for fully effective training and evaluation of the cognitive and workload management skills associated with radio communications, significant improvements in radio communications realism are needed. Initial research on the training effectiveness of a fixed-base simulator with a wide field-of-view visual system compared to a like system having platform motion failed to find an operationally significant effect of motion. Follow-up work will examine whether this result was a function of the motion characteristics or the maneuvers tested. No changes in regulatory requirements can be expected without absolute confidence in the reliability and validity of the results, requiring considerable additional research in both areas. * Portions of this work have been published as Ref. 1.  Engineering Psychologist, Member AIAA.  Postdoctoral Associate, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Member AIAA.  Manager, Advanced Qualification Program, AFS-230. This paper is declared a work of the U.S. Government and is not subject to copyright protection in the United States. NOTATIONS AC Advisory Circular AQP Advanced Qualification Program ASP Advanced Simulation Plan ASRS Aviation Safety Reporting System ATC Air Traffic Control CRM Crew Resource Management DFS Deutsche Flugsicherung (German ATC) DOF Degrees Of Freedom FAA Federal Aviation Administration FOV Field Of View GATES Ground Air Traffic Environment System I/E Instructor/Evaluator IOE Initial Operating Experience IRAS Interactive Real Time Audio System JOINT Joint Operational Incidents Training NAS National Airspace System PF Pilot Flying PNF Pilot Not Flying NPRM Notice of Proposed Rulemaking PTS Practical Test Standards RTO Rejected Take-Off SFAR Special Federal Aviation Regulation SME Subject Matter Expert TCAS Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System V1 Take-off decision speed; the minimum speed in the take-off, following a failure of the critical engine, at which the pilot can continue the take-off and achieve the required height above the take-off surface within the take-off distance. V1 cut Engine failure at or above the take-off decision speed, V1, with continued take-off VR cut Engine failure at or above the rotation speed, VR, with continued take-off Proceedings of the AIAA Modeling and Simulation Technologies Conference, Montreal, Canada, 6-9 August 2001 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics 2 INTRODUCTION This paper gives an overview of the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) initiative towards promoting the effectiveness, availability and affordability of flight simulators. It discusses simulator use in airline pilot training and evaluation as well as recent changes in training and evaluation needs and their implications for simulator fidelity requirements. It then explains the FAA‟s rationale and objectives for tasking the Volpe Center with a scientific review of simulator requirements that examines both the fidelity of the simulation of the environment in which the airplane operates and the fidelity of the airplane simulation itself. Finally, it presents the current focal points of the investigation, namely, the needor lack of needfor realistically simulating radio communications and airplane motion. Findings to date and future plans are discussed. SIMULATOR USE IN AIRLINE PILOT TRAINING AND EVALUATION Simulators have been used in air-carrier pilot training and evaluation since the 1950s. These early simulations were effective for training and checking of procedures, systems knowledge, and navigation skills. Not until the introduction of the FAA‟s Advanced Simulation Plan (ASP), however, which established technical requirements for simulators, could stick and rudder skills be trained and evaluated in the simulator. Major airlines are currently not only conducting their recurrent training entirely in the simulator, but also their initial, transition, and upgrade training and certification. This is followed by carefully structured Initial Operating Experience (IOE) carrying passengers in the air, under supervision of a Check Airman. The control and flexibility afforded by flight simulators has greatly enhanced pilot training as well as practically eliminated training accidents at major airlines that have access to the high-fidelity simulators required for total training and checking. Training accidents, however, continue to occur at smaller airlines that still conduct some of their training in the airplane. Also, the lack of access to high-fidelity simulators deprives the smaller airlines of some of the training opportunities provided by simulators, such as carefully constructed scenarios containing emergencies that require cognitive skills such as crew coordination, task management, and decision making in addition to motor flying skills. These training opportunities are particularly important in view of recent changes in the airline operational environment, effecting a shift in training and evaluation needs. TRAINING CHALLENGES IN TODAY’S OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENT Managers of airline pilot training programs today are increasingly being faced with some unprecedented challenges. Of these, changing demographics in the available new-hire population is clearly the most prominent. Many of the U.S.‟s largest airlines have found it necessary to dramatically decrease their entrylevel requirements in terms of flight hours and prior experience. This in turn has placed even greater pressure on smaller airlines, where entry levels have been lowered to bare minimums, while turnover among pilots leaving for positions with major airlines is at an all time high. All of this is occurring in a backdrop of increased congestion within the National Airspace System (NAS), associated short-term strategies (such as Land and Hold Short) to manage capacity, the acquisition of newer aircraft with increasingly automated cockpit systems, the merging of airlines which may differ in their operating procedures and their corporate cultures, and near term plans for new ways of operating within the NAS, such as free flight and Air Traffic Control (ATC) data link. These developments clearly have implications for the design and content of pilot training. Pilot training curricula, which were based on certain entry-level assumptions that are no longer valid, must be revised to incorporate training in areas either not previously required for airline new hires, or not previously addressed in depth. In some cases this will require a substantial increase in the footprints allocated to training and assessment of basic knowledge and handson flying skills. In all cases it will require that flight operations training include specific emphasis on building proficiency in the integration of cognitive and motor flying skills. While these needs are particularly pertinent to initial qualification curricula, they may also necessitate certain changes in recurrent training curricula, in order to assure that requisite proficiency is maintained, especially for rarely practiced skills, or those with very low prior experience histories. Similarly, it becomes increasingly important for each airline to assure that pilot training for both newhire and existing pilot populations appropriately reflect its dynamically changing environment, whether that be in terms of aircraft systems, flight procedures, or corporate culture. With regard to the regulatory environment pertinent to these developments, there is both good and bad news. On the positive side, the FAA has established a voluntary regulatory program for airlines that is well suited to meet the training challenges of today and Proceedings of the AIAA Modeling and Simulation Technologies Conference, Montreal, Canada, 6-9 August 2001 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics 3 tomorrow. The Advanced Qualification Program (AQP), which was established as Special Federal Aviation Regulation (SFAR) 58, 2 is specifically designed to assure that pilot training programs remain responsive to changing needs, and that the graduates of such programs not only possess the requisite knowledge and hands-on skills, but that in particular, they can demonstrate proficiency in the integration of cognitive and motor skills in operationally realistic scenarios that test both. On the negative side, the traditional pilot training regulations, Subparts N & O of Part 121 of the Code of Federal Regulations, which constitute the only alternative to AQP, are sorely out of date relative to today's needs. The FAA is presently in the process of rewriting Subparts N & O. A Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) detailing proposed changes to traditional pilot training, testing, and checking requirements is anticipated at a future date. AQP requires airlines to employ a systematic instructional-design process in determining the content of pilot training, testing, and checking, as well as in the training equipment allocation for those purposes to curricula. It specifically requires the use of entry-level analysis to assure that training content is appropriately matched to an airline's pilot population, and it mandates the implementation of a continuing quality control process for monitoring the effectiveness of curricula. While it allows flexibility in equipment selection, AQP is not ordinarily intended for use in curricula that employ the aircraft for training. Rather, AQPs typically employ a suite of training equipment, which includes flight training devices and full flight simulators. The revised Subpart N & O rules are expected to incorporate a similar philosophy. This is in contrast to the existing rules, which still permit training, testing, and checking to be conducted entirely in the aircraft. It can reasonably be expected, therefore, that within a few more years, all airline pilot training in the U.S. will require the use of full flight simulators for certain training, testing, and checking tasks, while allowing for the use of flight training devices for many but not all such tasks. It can also be expected that pilot training addressing both cognitive and motor skills in simulated scenarios that require both sets of skills will be a requirement for all curricula, both in AQP and otherwise. A related regulatory development is the pending issuance of an NPRM on simulator qualification. Whereas presently U.S. simulator qualification procedures and standards are detailed only in an FAA Advisory Circular (AC), 3 the proposed new rule is intended to establish a regulatory basis for those procedures and standards. If issued as a final rule, airlines and training centers that do not maintain their flight simulators in accordance with the procedures and standards on which basis the FAA originally qualified the equipment could be subject to FAA enforcement action. FAA/VOLPE FLIGHT SIMULATOR FIDELITY