Flying Without Wings

The international organisation that sets the world8217;s aviation regulations has adopted a new standard that could alter the nature of pilot training. In essence, prospective co-pilots will be able to earn most of their experience in ground-based simulators.

The move is designed to allow foreign airlines, especially those in Asia and the Middle East that face shortages of pilots, to more quickly train and hire flight crews. The United States isn8217;t expected to adopt the new rules any time soon, but international pilots trained under the new standards will be allowed to fly into and out of the country.

The change is generating some controversy. Safety experts and pilot groups question whether simulators 8212; which have long been hailed as an important training tool 8212; are good enough to replace critical early flight experience.

8220;In a simulator, you have pride at stake,8221; said Dennis Dolan, president of the International Federation of Air Line Pilots8217; Associations, which has raised questions about the new standard. 8220;In a real airplane, you have your life at stake.8221;

Officials at the International Civil Aviation Organisation ICAO, which is setting the new standards for pilot licensing, said the role of simulators has grown substantially in most airline training programmes. Airlines often train co-pilots for new aircraft only in simulators, without flying; such a co-pilot8217;s first flight on the new plane is with paying passengers on board.

The new rules apply only to co-pilots of commercial planes. Captains, who are in charge of those aircraft, must have hundreds more hours of flight experience. The new standards will allow people to become a co-pilot on a jetliner with about 70 hours of flight time and 170 hours in simulators. Other licences require about 200 hours of flight experience. Co-pilots perform many of the same duties as captains.

In the United States, a co-pilot of a commercial plane must have at least 250 hours of experience, some of which can be earned in simulators, federal regulators said.

Full-motion simulators with advanced computer graphics are exact replicas of airplane cockpits, down to the switches and circuit breakers. The graphics displayed on cockpit windows have become so advanced that pilots can watch baggage carts rumble across taxiways and see wisps of clouds rush past their windows and even snow drift across tarmacs. Full-motion simulators 8212; giant boxes atop moving legs 8212; can toss crews around in bad turbulence and even duplicate the thud-thud-thudding of a jet streaking down a runway for takeoff.

8220;Those hours flying solo in a single-engine piston airplane, they do us no good at the airlines, and we can8217;t monitor the pilots,8221; said Christian Schroeder, an official with the International Air Transport Association, a trade group that represents airlines. 8220;We are training a better-qualified and safer pilot this way.8221;

However, safety experts and pilots groups said pilots gain invaluable 8220;white-knuckle8221; experience in hundreds of hours of flight time in real planes. Flight crews also learn the intricacies and pressures of dealing with air-traffic controllers in congested air space 8212; conditions hard to replicate in simulators. Besides, no one has studied whether simulators can safely replace early flight experience, said Cass Howell, chairman of the department of aeronautical science at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida.

8220;There is no objective proof that this will be just as safe a method of training,8221; Howell said. 8220;At this point, nobody knows if this is an effective training method.8221;

8212;LA Times-Washington Post / Del Quentin Wilber