Train-the-Trainer by DataHomeLab

9.7 The Simulator Training Process

The six tasks

The simulator training process can be broadly characterised by the following six tasks:

  • Brief the students on the objectives of the training event and the procedure to be employed.
  • Initialise the simulator and the IOS for the procedures to be employed.
  • Conduct the training exercises. This entails the control of the simulation environment during the course of the exercises, dynamic feedback to the students, monitor and record student performance.
  • Evaluate the training session, student performance, and any problems encountered during simulation.
  • Debrief the students in terms of performance and recommendations.
  • Document all the simulation events, problems encountered, and other important training and system information obtained during the training process.

The six tasks are sequenced; brief precedes initialise, initialise precedes conduct, conduct produces evaluation data, evaluation feeds debrief, and documentation captures the whole. The instructor's preparation discipline (see 6.1 Introduction) and debrief discipline (see 7.1 Introduction) operate inside this six-task envelope.

Following the lesson plan

When conducting the simulator session, follow the lesson plan as much as possible according to the approved training programme. If it appears that the student cannot keep up the pace of the lessons, modify the lesson to meet all of the objectives.

The programme anchor is operational: the lesson plan is what makes the session reproducible across crews and across instructors; the modification clause is what lets the instructor preserve the objectives when the original pacing does not fit the trainee in front of them. Modify the pacing or sequence; do not modify the objectives.

Treat the simulator as a real airplane

Always treat the simulator as though it were a real airplane and do not allow any shortcuts or omissions in procedures.

Fly in real time

Whenever possible, plan to fly in "real time." There are several reasons for this, especially as training time gets nearer to actual airplane flying:

  • Realism promotes better transfer of learning. Real-time training preserves the temporal relationships between events that the trainee will encounter on the line.
  • The law of intensity states that the more realistic a learning situation is, the more learning takes place. Real-time training is more realistic than time-compressed or time-skipped training, and so produces more durable learning.
  • The simulator will have better fidelity if prolonged or repeated freezes are not used. Repeated freezes degrade the trainee's mental model of the exercise and the simulator's representation of the exercise state.

The four rules together

The supporting rules, read together, compose a coherent operating philosophy:

  • Follow the approved programme. The lesson-plan content is the approved programme's standardised expression of what the session must achieve.
  • Treat the simulator as a real airplane. The behavioural and procedural standards in the simulator should be indistinguishable from the line.
  • Fly in real time. The temporal dynamics of the exercise should match the line operation.
  • Avoid prolonged or repeated freezes. Freezes are surgical interventions reserved for the cases catalogued in 9.10 Factors that can Affect Simulator Training, not routine simulator-training tools.

The four rules push in the same direction: the simulator session should approximate line operations as closely as the device, the lesson plan, and the trainee's developmental stage permit. Any deviation from line operations is a deliberate trade-off the instructor should be conscious of, not an accident.

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