Airbus' training department at Toulouse is developing a new training tool, initially for trainee pilots on the A350.
Called ACE - or Airbus Cockpit Experience - it is a laptop-based teaching system that puts the student in either the left or right seat in a 3D cockpit environment, able to flick switches, turn or press knobs, enter data and get results. Two trainees can interact as a crew - as in a computer game - even from different locations. Inputs are via touch-screen, keyboard or mouse-click.
This is not a simulator, Airbus explains, but it is more than a simple procedures trainer and much more than traditional computer-based training.
It has several training levels, starting with a demonstration of procedures - for example engine start - where the required control inputs are shown via graphically represented pilots' hands flicking the correct switches.
There is also a guided mode where the trainee is corrected if they make a wrong move, and another where the system offers no guidance, just practice or trial and error.
Airbus expects the development to be complete in time for the system to go live in its training department in October.
Source: Flight Daily News
