Simulated Intro Cuts First-Flight Stress, Cost

At the August meeting about the AOPA Student Retention Initiative, a CFI in the audience suggested replacing a real airplane, the most expensive line of the flight training bill, with a simulator. Not totally, mind you, but enough to get students started, and to ease the natural anxiety arising with the noisy, demanding, distracting environment of the real thing.

The Aviation Training & Resource Center, I recently learned, is trying just such a program. Called Wannabee a Pilot, for $599 students get 5 hours with a CFI in a Redbird FMX1000 full-motion visual sim, complete with ground school and pre- and post-flight briefings. The time counts toward a private ticket, and given the 21st century proclivity for virtual experiences, this may be the perfect introduction to flying the real thing.

Let’s face it, to people who lived in a carefully controlled world where risk is managed at every turn, the cockpit of a single-engine general aviation trainer is a scary place. It’s loud. Glass or steam gauges gush with relentless and incomprehensible flow of information. You steer with your feet. And everybody is talking to you at the same time. The tower talks faster than you can listen. And the person sitting next to you is explaining everything in a foreign language. Oh, and you’re paying a lot of money to be here.

Honestly, my initial reaction to the simulator suggestion and, later, the Wannabee a Pilot program, was not positive because I compared them to my old-school life experiences. Fortunately, among the voices that mount my mental soapbox is a contrarian who objectively dissects initial reactions before they dribble from my mouth or fingertips. By putting me in the previous paragraph, it became immediately clear that a simulator is the perfect place to start the training of today’s pilots.

Unlike the unknown training airplane, the simulator is a safe, welcoming environment filled with technology that has matured with the younger half of the population. Ground school explains the unfamiliar and the preflight briefing eliminates surprises. Unlike real life, the simulator has a pause button, allowing student and instructor to talk about what just happened or what the controller just said, without the educationally distracting need to fly an airplane. As sim training has proven with airline aviators, it will surely deliver the same preparatory benefits to new student pilots.

In parallel with this cost-efficient transfer of skills, Sporty’s sent me notice of its new Flight Sim Training Guide. Derived from two decades of experience of integrating simulators with its flight school training programs, the 100-page book delivers 15 detailed lesson plans, complete with suggested maneuvers, performance standards, and study resources. It comes with a CD of Microsoft Flight Sim X scenarios specific to each lesson, along with instructions of configuring it for maximum reality.

About now your contrary voice might be speaking up about the fidelity of Flight Sim X. Having flown both, I’ll agree that it’s not the equal of the airline 777 sim I flew several years ago, but in some regards its better because it lets you safely make mistakes that come from thinking about every input, pilot actions that are often automated in the upper reaches of aviation. — Scott Spangler