Canadian pilots no longer have to fly real aircraft to keep valid licences • Hacker News Board

Re: Canadian pilots no longer have to fly real aircraft to keep valid licences

#21

Post by rsync » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 4:25 PM UTC

annerajb wrote: post #6

swingbridge wrote: post #4

Simulators are great for training on emergency scenarios that can't easily or safely be done in a real airplane, or practicing and learning new avionics or systems but they shouldn't be a substitute for real flying experience. This is a bad decision.

As a pilot that is learning. Why can't a simulator recreate the real flying experience? Especially on this fly by wire aircrafts?

"I was just settling down with my book and I felt the airplane do a very odd maneuver. We could feel the airplane doing something very significant and abnormal."[1][2]

Human brains are amazing things that, with no special effort - only practice and repetition - can combine a huge number of disparate inputs to synthesize the "feel" of something.

The airplane is a physical thing and it has "a feel". A good pilot (or jockey or surgeon or fighter or truck driver) has a tremendous amount of stored information and experience related to "the feel" of what they are doing. We would be vastly worse off (and less safe) if we discounted that human ability and fooled ourselves into believing that simulation can ever match the experience of doing a thing in the physical world.

[1] http://jalopnik.com/5629528/how-i-saved-a-747-from-crashing

Re: Canadian pilots no longer have to fly real aircraft to keep valid licences

#22

Post by wired8 » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 4:27 PM UTC

My father is a flight instructor in New Zealand, he said simulator use there is credited towards yearly flying hours.

The only difference I can see between a modern simulator and the real thing is lack of consequence.

Re: Canadian pilots no longer have to fly real aircraft to keep valid licences

#23

Post by ghaff » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 4:29 PM UTC

drittich wrote: post #19

afarrell wrote: post #8

It would be nice if we had either public driving simulators or classes that you could use to improve your driving and response to erratic other drivers. I suspect that the lack of this deliberate training is one reason why driving is much more dangerous than flying. Back when I owned a car, it seemed like all of the classes on driving marketed themselves as either: 1) A totally unchallenging formality that will satis…

That is an amazing idea. I would love it if people were required to spend time in driving simulators practicing spin recovery, emergency braking, etc. This is totally doable and could have a huge impact on accident statistics. It's also a much better way to validate drivers' reaction times and decision-making ability as they age.

In an ideal world, sure. In the real world, what could be the problem with making everyone take a regular test to have the right to continue doing something that's an inherent part of most people working and participating in society?

Yes, there are some people driving who probably shouldn't be on the road. But until such times as automation arrives, you'll find exactly zero support for that idea outside the young and fit of Silicon Valley.

Re: Canadian pilots no longer have to fly real aircraft to keep valid licences

#24

Post by drittich » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 4:32 PM UTC

raverbashing wrote: post #17

drittich wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this a false dichotomy, e.g., shouldn't it be "The problem is relying on automation in addition to real piloting skills"? Look at the space program, for example. Extremes of forces and very short windows for decision-making have moved spaceflight in the direction of automation for most mission critical moments. The data that feeds in-flight automation is the same that feeds simulators, so I am not sure where th…

I don't see your point > The data that feeds in-flight automation is the same that feeds simulators The problem is when the data sources fail, like in AF447. Or when you have people crashing an airplane in perfect weather, like Asiana Airlines 214 in San Francisco Yes, automation makes things easier, but they fail eventually. And when it fails you have to fly it manually (or with a lower level of automation). But som…

Well, I am not arguing for or against automation (although ultimately as an optimistic programmer I land very much in the for camp.)

What I am saying is that simulation time alone is not good enough. Nor is flying-only time. Both are needed, and for different reasons. Sure, time spent in automation mode in the air is not incredibly useful. But it is reality, and enduring that, only to have to take manual control in a panic after 8 hours of boredom is something I don't see simulators re-reproducing very well any time soon.

Re: Canadian pilots no longer have to fly real aircraft to keep valid licences

#25

Post by ghaff » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 4:36 PM UTC

adamfeldman wrote: post #18

cm2187 wrote: post #14

I was under the impression that 95% of the time, the pilot sits in the cockpit doing nothing, other that watching the autopilot by a clear sunny day. Whereas in a simulator the pilot is busy practicing challenging environments. I am not qualified to have an opinion on whether a pilot can do simulators only but intuitively, an hour of simulator seems to be worth more than one hour of real life flight.

American B2 bomber pilots practice 14+ hour long-endurance missions in simulators before they're ever allowed near a real ($2B+) aircraft

I suspect though that knowing you're being tested in a simulator, even if it is a boring long-endurance mission, could still affect how you think about it and approach it.

Re: Canadian pilots no longer have to fly real aircraft to keep valid licences

#26

Post by userbinator » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 4:36 PM UTC

swingbridge wrote: post #4

Simulators are great for training on emergency scenarios that can't easily or safely be done in a real airplane, or practicing and learning new avionics or systems but they shouldn't be a substitute for real flying experience. This is a bad decision.

There is also this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulator_sickness

No simulator can recreate the forces experienced in a real plane exactly, and it can be very disorienting and nauseating. As a simple example, consider a plane accelerating down the runway for takeoff --- that feeling of thrust that pushes you back into the seat can't be simulated. I have severe motion sickness and can't do things like play FPS, simulators, or watch videos with lots of movement in my field of vision without becoming very dizzy and fatigued. VR and 3D only makes it worse. Yet I have no problems driving or riding in a real plane.

Re: Canadian pilots no longer have to fly real aircraft to keep valid licences

#27

Post by drittich » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 4:37 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #23

drittich wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an amazing idea. I would love it if people were required to spend time in driving simulators practicing spin recovery, emergency braking, etc. This is totally doable and could have a huge impact on accident statistics. It's also a much better way to validate drivers' reaction times and decision-making ability as they age.

In an ideal world, sure. In the real world, what could be the problem with making everyone take a regular test to have the right to continue doing something that's an inherent part of most people working and participating in society? Yes, there are some people driving who probably shouldn't be on the road. But until such times as automation arrives, you'll find exactly zero support for that idea outside the young and…

I strongly disagree that driving is a right. It is a privilege that should be validated as well as is practical to protect yourself and the rest of society. I don't think we are anywhere near the limits of what is practical. Because we don't currently do this doesn't make it right, or something we shouldn't think of ways to solve. See recent changes in North American society regarding smoking laws. Change can happen faster than you think.

Re: Canadian pilots no longer have to fly real aircraft to keep valid licences

#28

Post by userbinator » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 4:40 PM UTC

sigstoat wrote: post #11

afarrell wrote: post #8

It would be nice if we had either public driving simulators or classes that you could use to improve your driving and response to erratic other drivers. I suspect that the lack of this deliberate training is one reason why driving is much more dangerous than flying. Back when I owned a car, it seemed like all of the classes on driving marketed themselves as either: 1) A totally unchallenging formality that will satis…

Bridgestone's Winter Driving School comes to mind immediately, http://winterdrive.com/ Fundamentally, I think most drivers view driving as just a thing they do, and give no thought to the possibility of improving. So having classes or simulators isn't going to help, because they wouldn't take advantage of them.

So having classes or simulators isn't going to help, because they wouldn't take advantage of them.

...unless it becomes a requirement for a license.

Re: Canadian pilots no longer have to fly real aircraft to keep valid licences

#29

Post by clarry » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 4:45 PM UTC

Is CAE a major player among flight sim companies? Because in that case, there's clear economic incentive in making simulator training accepted.. first in Canada, with the hope that other countries will follow. Big company will get a good chance to export their product.

Re: Canadian pilots no longer have to fly real aircraft to keep valid licences

#30

Post by trelliscoded » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 4:46 PM UTC

It seems to me that the #1 way to predict pilot performance in emergencies is whether the pilot has encountered the emergency before and lived. If so, running the pilot through the most scenarios possible in a given unit time would seem to be a good strategy to train pilots, and simulators would increase the rate of scenarios per unit time versus a real aircraft.

However, you can't get away from actually flying a plane. There's little things you don't practice in the simulator, like making sure you have your handheld VHF radio, checking for water in the fuel tanks, and how to balance cargo, that you'll never learn in front of a computer screen.

If it's anything like network administration, I'd say something like 20% real experience vs 80% simulated might be a good mix. People who favor just one or the other lack performance under adverse circumstances compared to admins who do both, I've noticed.