April 2008 Archives

Regulatory bodies in the US and elsewhere are trying to sort out common standards for all levels of training devices:

Previous harmonisation efforts led to the creation in 1992 of an International Civil Aviation Organisation manual describing the minimum requirements for qualifying aircraft flight simulators. This was updated in 2001 to reflect changes in simulation technology, but only defines the highest level of flight simulator.

The result was the harmonisation of qualification requirements for FAA and JAA Level D and ICAO Level 2 simulators. These high-fidelity devices, which permit zero flight-time training, have become the de facto standard for the industry and accounted for 70% of all US Federal Aviation Administration simulator approvals between 2000 and 2005.

But there is a distinct lack of harmonisation of standards for lower-level devices. The FAA has six levels of flight training device (FTD), plus others for PC-based desktop trainers, while Europe has more. ICAO, meanwhile, has identified the need for four additional levels of training device to support the multi-crew pilot licence (MPL), intended as a single global minimum performance standard for pilot training.

In November 2005, at the request of the FAA, the UK Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS) agreed to establish an international working group to review the ICAO technical standards and expand them to include all devices from desktop trainers to full-flight simulators for both fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters.

"We felt it was the right time to harmonise and modernise the standards, to clean them up so they would be more streamlined and simpler for industry," says Stephane Clement, CAE manager, training solutions, verification and validation. "Lower-level FTDs like flat-panel trainers were becoming more popular, but it was not clear if they needed qualification, or at what level." There was also growing interest in using simulators for helicopter training. "The November 2005 meeting at the RAeS in London asked if it was time to upgrade flight simulation training standards, and the very strong answer was 'yes'," Clement says. There were many reasons, he says, including the need for more harmonisation, and to accommodate new technology, changes in the regulatory environment and the emergence of MPL.

The result will be seven new levels, with level 7 slightly above the current requirements for FAA Level D:

The intent is for ICAO to adopt the seven levels as the new international standards for flight simulation training devices. "The IWG's purpose is to produce a draft ICAO document," says Clement. "And for the devices in the draft we really know where they come from, instead of them being devices built on technology evolutions."

ICAO Level 7, the highest fidelity device, can be used for type and class ratings, recurrent and recency training, and MPL Phase 4 advanced training. Level 7 is close to today's Level D, but adds the requirement for ATC simulation, and the required field of view of the visual display system has been increased.

"An existing Level D simulator could meet or almost meet Level 7," says Clement. "Today, Level D requires a horizontal field of view of 180°. Going forward, we have settled on 200°, which is feasible with three channels." The reason for the increase is the requirement to train for curved approaches, he says.

"Today there are no requirements, but on Level 7 there will be a requirement for ATC simulation," Clement says. "Accidents are caused by human factors such as miscommunications, and cadets going through MPL need exposure to the airport environment during training. ATC simulation allows total immersion." Air traffic control simulation can be added to Level D simulators as a software kit, he says.

The same article provides more details about the differences between proposed levels, and also has some interesting info on sales of commercial simulators over the past few years.

From flightglobal.com, pictures of something that looks an awful lot like Matrix GFS:

Thales has released images of its I-Deck cockpit prototyping and simulation platform that it is using to develop the flightdeck for the Airbus A350.

Thales was selected in January over Honeywell and Rockwell Collins to supply the A350's six identical 15in (38cm) rectangular screens and the keyboard cursor control unit flight management system interface.

The company says that I-Deck has been used to fine-tune the different aspects of the cockpit configuration: "It allows us and future pilots to test rapidly new configurations and display systems within the cockpit."

Developed in Bordeaux, the I-Deck became operational during 2007 and is now located in Toulouse. Thales aims to exhibit the I-Deck at the Farnborough air show in July....

Thales says the I-Deck demonstrator is designed "to make the environment as real as possible to be able to validate certain functions within the cockpit, for instance the evolution towards the use of the large displays, the optimisation of information and improved situational awareness."

From the ai.implant blog, how DMOC uses commercial software to generate scenarios and constructive entities for the annual Virtual Flag distributed simulation exercise:

The Distributed Missions Operations Centre of the US Air Force entrusts Presagis' STAGE Scenario to create thousands of entities for its large-scale training events.

The Distributed Missions Operations Center (DMOC) of the United States Air Force is one of the largest simulation facilities in the world. As part of the US Defense Secretary's Training Transformation Initiative, DMOC's mission is to develop and support tactical-level synthetic battlespace events for Air Force, joint, and coalition units. ...

In 2001, DMOC began using Presagis' STAGE Scenario as its blue-air environment generator. According to de Anda, "STAGE Scenario is used primarily for three functions. First, it is used to put constructive blue-air entities that can be driven by White Force operators into the event. Second, it supplements the air picture as seen from the cockpits. And, third, it increases our capabilities to realize effective communication and other training objectives."

One of the key reasons that DMOC chose to use STAGE Scenario is because of its intuitive User Interface. Explains de Anda, "Our White Force personnel change out every VF, so we need an intuitive UI that lets us get straight to flying the constructive simulations. STAGE Scenario provides this capability as our White Force drivers pick up on the interface in short order."

Additionally, DMOC needed a powerful solution since typical VF events require the generation of thousands of blue-air entities. STAGE Scenario was more than up for this challenge. Says de Anda, "STAGE Scenario can handle on the order of 10,000 entities. This is the going requirement to support VF-size events. In fact, during VF testing and integration, STAGE Scenario showed no discernable fidelity degradation when tested against 9,000 blue-air entities."...

In such large-scale event simulations, there are significant opportunities for commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) tools. However, as de Anda explains, "COTS vendors will have to remain competitive on price, incorporate open standards, such as those implemented by SISO, and work with government intelligence communities to deliver systems that work with predefined formats."

Because of its interoperability, DMOC has already committed to maintaining STAGE Scenario as an integral part of its VF event development. To this end, DMOC has purchased the rights to the STAGE Scenario code in order to be able to modify it for their own use. And, as they move forward, DMOC will continue to roll their in-house modifications into the next baseline version of STAGE Scenario.

This blog entry also has more information about how a Virtual Flag is conducted.

Presagis also produces the VAPS prototyping tool.