CAT 3 2014 Emirates

Airline TrAining Profile

Captain Martin Mahoney, SVP Flight Training at Emirates, is very well aware that the ideal model for training pilots is constantly changing as it embraces new technology and, importantly, new understanding of human performance. Emirates operates the largest global fleet of Airbus A380s and Boeing 777s, and continues to build those numbers as it accepts one of each type per month during 2014.

Whilst there will also be a gradual phasing out of the existing Airbus A330 and A340 fleet, the overall aircraft num-bers will continue to increase, and conse-quently there will be a parallel growth in crew numbers, which currently stand at 3,700 pilots and 18,000 cabin crew. The task continues to expand to match that demand for initial and recurrent training.

For over four years Emirates has been driving hard to further improve output standards in every training and check-ing session; the crews either reach those new standards or leave the airline. How-ever at the heart of the programme is the increased training time made available to those crews in order to boost perfor-mance. Here the Emirates approach is

Emirates Training A 21st Century Model?

Emirates has recently placed an order for an

additional 50 A380 aircraft,

boosting its fleet to 140.image credit:

emirates group.

characterised by the buy in of the senior management, including the president of Emirates, to the principle of investing resources to support the carefully targeted supplementary training.

Form and FocusHistorically the start point for training has been to apply the regu-latory programmes which defined the legal imperatives for operat-ing. The regulations were largely driven by long-term experience of aircraft operation, at a time when the rate of innovation was much slower than today. Changes were often a result of lessons learnt from accidents and incidents, and the process of modifying training patterns was very lengthy.

It is a matter of record that only one in ten of routine flights go as initially programmed into the flight management system, the rest requiring active intervention by the pilots to achieve an effective conclusion to the flight. Where training has now changed most dramatically is that the new focus is not simply on letting the accident/incident analysis drive the training needs, but rather to use the mass of data from all flights, including the overwhelming number of successful flights, to identify best practice and behav-iour during routine and abnormal operations.

Alongside this, human performance has been studied in great detail, and this, together with ongoing research, can help to refine both selection of appropriate personal characteristics desirable for operating crews, and adaptive training designed to enhance such characteristics and skills.

AutomationAn area which has for some years been a focus of attention, both

Chris Long visited emirates, the largest airline in the Middle east, to investigate its training expertise.

repr inted f rom CAT Magazine issue 3.2014 Hal lda le group 2014

within the industry and, significantly, beyond the profession, is the seamless integration of automation with the skill sets of the flight crew. For many years the drive was frequently to impose automation over the more basic piloting skills, rather than inte-grate it within the range of competencies of the crews. It is here that Mahoney places particular emphasis. The FAA formed a Flight Deck Automation Working Group (FDAWG) to study this specific issue, and he believes the presence of an Emirates rep-resentative on the Group meant that we were able to influence industry policy on this important topic. The vast majority of all the recommendations issued by the FDAWG have already been implemented at Emirates.

Mahoneys comment is in response to an article in Flight International, which highlighted some of the concerns about the balance of baseline pilot handling skills and the increased use of automation. He points out several features on the present pilot training pattern employed at Emirates, which works its way through revisions of aerodynamic theory, through recovery from the approach to stall, both at low and high altitudes, overspeed sit-uations and intervention training, both for First Officers and Cap-tains. Many of these factors are introduced through an extended range of CAE-prepared training scenarios to enhance the startle factor. These are introduced throughout the training, including the two manual handling simulator sessions per year which are in addition to standard regulatory recurrent training. Such sessions are flown without the aid of the Autopilot, Flight Directors or Auto Throttle. In practice, then, Emirates pilots can expect a training session in the simulator on average every three months.

Emirates Training A 21st Century Model?

ATQP/EBTThis new training philosophy is imple-mented through the Alternative Train-ing Qualification Programme (ATQP), in which the content is largely defined by Evidence Based Training (EBT).

This latter assembles data from real flight operations in the wide-ranging route network of Emirates as well as from the IATA database, and is able to focus on the skills deemed essential for this particular airline.

ATQP, a programme conceived in close cooperation with the regulatory authority, addresses all of those skills over a three year cycle, the first one of which was completed in January 2014. This will run into the eventual adoption of the IATA Training Qualification Initiative (ITQI), a programme with which Emirates has been involved with IATA over the last three years. Because the start point is EBT, which uses continuing update of data from operating flights, the pattern has at its core a process of continuing evolution. The ultimate aim is to move away from the base line manufacturers conversion courses: we will retain those

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aspects of these courses which remain relevant, add content to the courses, and realign existing content to reflect our data and evidence amassed over many, many Emirates pilot conversion courses. By so doing we all create conversion courses which better reflects the need of our new pilots when they join us.

Ab InitioEmirates presently has an ab initio pilot training programme which recruits cadets from the UAE population, and numbers about 60 pilots a year. At the moment they attend courses at Flight Training Europe and at Oxford Aviation Academy, but from late 2015/early 2016 their successors will be trained at the new Emirates Training Academy, which will be established at the new airport - Dubai World Central. Graduates of the ab initio programme have generally moved to the wide-body fleets, but some of the recent graduates have gone to the regional carrier - flydubai, to build time on the Boeing 737NG fleet.

The rapid accumulation of sectors which such an airline offers is an excel-lent operational environment for the cadets to build experience before con-verting to the Emirates fleets of wide-body aircraft. An objective assessment of this two year programme will take place this year when the first of these cadets transition from flydubai to our B777 fleet. Not only do the young pilots love the level of activity and hands-on flying which fly-dubai offers, but intuitively we believe their experience will stand them in very good stead flying our wide-body aircraft into six continents to some challenging destinations often in inclement weather

FundamentalsMahoney is cautious about the effectiveness of the ICAO Avia-tion English Level 4 qualification. Experience has shown that all too frequently those holding that certificate simply do not have the language skills necessary to operate to the Emirates standard. Consequently all new joiners have a course on R/T to bring them to the required level. One encouraging point for those who would like to join is that it has been found that those pilots who have spent time with the European low cost car-riers have mastered both the fundamental handling skills and spatial awareness as a result of their exposure to multi-sector days. This has proven to be an excellent starting point for the Emirates training.

Cabin CrewInnovation in training is not confined to the flight deck crew. Kellie White, Safety & Emergency Procedures Training Man-ager at Emirates, is keen to emphasise the robust nature of the safety training. Using a comprehensive range of high end training devices, largely sourced from TFC Simulation und Technik in Germany, the training is as realistic as she can make it. The emergency evacuation trainers provide a rich sensory environment to simulate as closely as possible a wide range


Emirates pilots can expect a training

session in the simulator on average every three months.

image credit:emirates group.


of scenarios. Motion, sound, visual and startle inputs characterise training in tur-bulence/explosive decompression/emer-gency landings/ditching/onboard fires and smoke-filled cabins.

Equally important is the understand-ing of other cultures, so the cabin crew are introduced to behaviours which may be alien to their home culture. The authority which must be shown by cabin crew during an emergency situation may not come naturally to some, but, with appropriate explanations of likely pas-senger and crew behaviours in challeng-ing situations, training can help crews acquire the essential skills. A great deal of attention is given to building commu-nication skills, so many of the training scenarios include both flight deck and cabin crew in robust CRM exercises - the understanding of each others' tasks results in much improved interactions between the elements of the entire air-craft crew.

One feature of the training is encour-aging the crews to come up with original solutions to problems during the training

- open discussion between the crews and the trainers is an important element that is embedded in the training approach. For instance, the use of the checklist is an important primary tool, but in some time-critical situations it may be that an action has to be adapted to an unforeseen event and training for that kind of resilience is also a key feature.

The constant search for even more effective training often leads to the adop-tion of new and emerging technology the idea of an avatar to lead some of the distance learning is intriguing. Such a solution could enhance standardisa-tion and be particularly attractive to the new generation entrants, so the search is on to find and assess such an alterna-tive. Much of this thinking is a result of encouraging input from current and new crews - the pool of experience is con-stantly evolving, and many of the inno-vations can be drawn out of this wider knowledge base.

Cultural DiversityThe global nature of international flight

operations means that many airlines now draw on a wide range of nation-alities to provide both flight and cabin crews. Emirates is, by its very nature, a multi-national team, with over 140 dif-ferent countries represented. Guiding them to a common operating culture is a delicate task, but an interesting obser-vation by Dr. Nicklas Dahlstrom, Human Factors Manager, suggests that this very diversity is a strength. Because there is no dominant national culture across the airline, it has developed its own strong corporate culture in which such diver-sity is a given. Consequently everyone needs to understand and adapt to this core culture, and the selection processes have adaptability as a fundamental part of the makeup of candidates. Thereafter the training teams, themselves multi-cultural, serve as role models for the new arrivals as they find their feet in the new environment.

Does it Work?Careful selection of new crews takes into account the major change of lifestyle

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c o m m i t t e d t o e x c e l l e n c e

TRAINING RESOURCING INNOVATION PARTNERSHIP


one of the strengths of aviation is that individual innovators can still make an impact. Some 35 years ago rolf Kufer, then a captain with the german airline lTU, decided to set up a flight school. later his son frank saw that the training devices for another discipline, cabin crew training, left a lot to be desired, so he manufactured his first device in 1997 a wide body cabin crew trainer. The company, TfC Simula-toren und Technik gmbH, now has grown

to the point where it is not only supplying a wide range of door trainers and full emer-gency evacuation trainers (CeeTs) to some of the worlds major airlines, including emir-ates, but is also running four centres for Cabin Crew training in germany.

Based in the pleasant north german town of Velbert, TfC is a self-contained organisation that can custom build these trainers to match an individual airlines requirements. So far as the door trainers are concerned, once the exact dimen-sions have been obtained from the aircraft oeMs, the internal design of the door is mastered at Velbert. What may be new to those unfamiliar with this training task is that, in addition to normal operation, a range of abnormal situations have to be simulated for instance door handles might become stiff to operate or doors reluctant to open. To simulate this, built in to the door structure itself are up to three powerful actuators which can be fine-tuned to vary the level of resistance. Con-sequently, the door has to be stronger to sustain repeated use of these greater than normal loads, and so must be designed and manufactured on-site.


which is required for pilots and their families. Specified experience and operating levels are expected to guar-antee a baseline for piloting skills, but the three and a half days of familiari-sation for prospective pilots and their families in Dubai before signing on are a critical part of the recruiting pro-cess, and it also allows Emirates to get a really good idea of the full person-ality of the individual. The very low training failure rate indicates that this whole process works well.

Once the training starts, the emphasis is to introduce resilience; the aim is to give our pilots the knowledge and confidence to buy themselves time whilst they fly the aircraft, assimilate the data, make a decision and land the aircraft. We have been held up as a leading exam-ple of EBT by the ITQI Steering Group. In fact, the ITQI Steering Group has stated publicly that Emirates support of the EBT programme was pivotal to its success. We have presented our ATQP/EBT programme to audiences including The Royal Aeronautical Society, the Asia Pacific Airline Train-ing Symposium and recently to TRAFI the Finnish Regulatory Authority.

Mahoney is not complacent far from it, and believes that much remains to be done to continue to be one of the leaders in the industry, and looks forward to the challenges that training will have to overcome in the future. One area to be explored is the goal of analysing current performance and behaviours in order to put in place predictive training, ideally adapted to individuals.

As to the effectiveness of the pre-sent pattern, the last word rests with an Emirates captain, who reinforces the usefulness of the training that he had received during his manual (fly-ing) training simulator sessions:

This morning, returning to Dubai in inclement weather, we experienced an auto flight degradation. Manually flying the aircraft in such environ-mental conditions was challenging if there was ever justification for the manual handling training sessions, I cant thank you enough

That says it all. cat

The present range of door trainers (including the first door trainers for the A350) and CeeTs covers all currently manufactured Airbus and Boeing aircraft together with some models for embraer and Bombardier. increasing the real-ism of the training is fundamental, so the CeeTs use either an hydraulic or eco-friendly electrical motion platform where requested by the airline, and other inputs of noise, audio, smoke, smell

and fire, and video of various outside scenarios can all be included in the device. Sophisticated training monitoring and video systems are installed, and all devices are supported at Velbert through the internet. This, for instance, shows that on the door trainers alone there are more than 1,000,000 operations annually by TfC customers. one TfC innovation embraced by lufthansa is the Virtual Slide, which projects various malfunc-tions or hazards associated with slide operation.

A critical strength of TfC is the tightly-knit 40 strong team. Here all departments, from design to manufacture to sales are all in close proximity in a flat hierarchy, through which change and adaptation can be quickly implemented. As a result they can respond rapidly to the increasing market presence in europe, the Middle east and Asia, and increasingly, China.

from what started as a bold initiative by one individual in building just one device, there is now another long-estab-lished global player in a very competitive market.

TfC- innovation Works

reprinted f rom CAT Magazine issue 3.2014 Hal lda le group 2014

Piecing together airline training for the region

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Asia Pacific Airline Training Symposium23-24 September 2014 Centara Grand Convention CentreBangkok, Thailand

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CAT 3 2014 Emirates