Into the Future
How Leveraging Technology Can Help Build Proficiency in a Busy World
By James Williams, FAA Safety Briefing Magazine
The most indispensable resource of this, or any age, isn’t money. It’s time. Time can be used to generate money, build experience, enjoy yourself, or any number of other things. But time is finite and flows in only one direction, at least until Doc Brown can get the flux capacitor working and the Delorian up to 88 miles per hour. Concurrent with the passage of time, we have the natural trend that erodes the skills we work hard to attain/create. But what does any of this have to do with IFR (instrument flight rules) flying and how does technology play a role in keeping pilots’ skills sharp?
The Triangle of Proficiency
With instrument training, there is a tendency to sometimes conflate currency with proficiency. Currency is easily defined (see Title 14, Code of Federal Regulations (14 CFR), section 61.57(c)). Proficiency is more challenging to delineate. While proficiency is defined in the Airman Certification Standards and Practical Test Standards testing documents, on an individual day-to-day basis, it is based more on an individual’s assessment. It’s similar to art in that it’s subjective and based on an individual’s appraisal. There is a test for both proficiency and art. In art, a piece is worth what someone will pay for it. Proficiency is safely completing your flight in the conditions as they exist.
Your flying skills, particularly instrument skills, decay if they are unused, and the essential resource to prevent that degradation is time spent exercising those skills. While money is certainly a consideration, time is genuinely the most constrained resource. With limited resources to address a problem, the first step is to state your objective. How do we define proficiency in a meaningful way we can use?
Our former editor, Susan Parson, covered this topic in 2010 with her concept of the “Proficiency Triangle.” The three sides of this triangle are Planning, Performance, and Procedures. These components are core facets of proficiency and give us areas to focus on and exercise. While we tend to think of proficiency in terms of the latter two aspects (performance and procedures), planning is probably more important. Planning is critical, as it can prevent you from having to test the other two components in a way that you may not be able to pass. We also don’t think of planning as a perishable skill we can practice, but it is. In fact, it can be practiced easily and from anywhere.
Performance is a prominent component. If you can’t control the aircraft, it’s all moot. But aircraft control is best thought of as being on a sliding scale. How does your ability to control an airplane in clear blue smooth skies compare to that in a large turbulent cloud? Even for proficient pilots, there are bound to be differences. And that leads into the final facet of the triangle, procedures. Being unfamiliar with a process or procedure means that you likely to need to focus more of your attention on that process. That means less attention on things like aircraft control. We have a limited amount of what physiologists call attentional resources, so the more of that resource that goes into the process’s basic function, the less that can be allocated to aircraft monitoring and control (and that’s without going down the rabbit hole around multitasking and whether humans can do it in a remotely effective way). But to be sure, having experience and proficiency with procedures allows you more attention for other tasks. Improving any of these facets is good, but maintaining proficiency in all three is the best way to maximize your safety. So, how do we accomplish this?
A Mixed Approach
The best way to stay proficient is to fly several times a week, if not daily. But this presents a significant challenge for most of us who aren’t professional pilots or have more disposable income. In addition, training conditions (smooth low clouds without the threat of thunderstorms or icing) to truly hone instrument skills can be challenging to find, even if you don’t have obstacles like full-time employment to worry about. This is where fidelity becomes essential. We can practice flight planning and go/no-go decision-making relatively easily. With modern flight briefing and planning suites, it’s simple to have a few canned flight plans you can brief, review, and decide on in a few minutes, even if you don’t intend to fly.
Your flying skills, particularly instrument skills, decay if they are unused, and the essential resource to prevent that degradation is time spent exercising those skills.
Where we need to get more creative is with performance and procedures. Obviously, practice approaches and procedures in the real world are the best in many ways, but we have limitations. We can’t control the weather and using view-limiting devices doesn’t quite capture the real experience. But whether we are trying to practice performance or procedures does change our approach to some extent. Focusing on procedures could start with a computer or tablet. Garmin offers software that will let your machine “run” simulated Garmin avionics to allow you to manipulate the systems virtually and learn how to operate them. While this is a lower fidelity approach, it is an excellent tool for learning how these systems function so that you already have a base knowledge level as we add stress factors. From there, aviation training devices (ATD) will add actual hardware switches, buttons, and knobs that replicate the real cockpit systems. This is a nice validation step, but ATDs aren’t always available as that high-quality hardware and validation increases the cost of acquisition out of reach for many people. But you can always use a computer and commercial flight simulator software to get many benefits in your home.
The Virtual Super Skyway
I’ve been a long-time proponent of using simulation for proficiency and training. I used a computer with an old-school monitor and X-Plane 6 to pre-fly my cross-country flights in my dorm room the day before training. Even with the much lower-quality visuals of the late 1990s to early 2000s, it was a great way to see the route before a flight. Since 2020, the flight simulator space has enjoyed a renaissance with the return of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (FS2020) after more than a decade out of the market. Microsoft is planning a follow-up Flight Simulator 2024 to be released later this year with various improvements over the current program. This means we have two high-quality commercially available flight simulators that can drive innovation. See “Fly into the Matrix” from our Jan/Feb 2021 issue for a deeper dive into personal computer simulation. The bottom line is that FS2020 and X-Plane are great programs that can be useful. I prefer X-Plane for a couple of reasons, including slightly better physics/airplane handling and easier flight setup. FS2020 has a better visual presentation, especially if you have a higher-end graphics processing unit (GPU), but it isn’t quite as well set up to “do work” in terms of ease of set up for specific tasks. These are relatively small differences overall, and the situation hasn’t changed much since late 2020, when I wrote the other article.
Both programs are available on a trial/demo basis for free or very low cost. X-Plane, as a downloadable demo, is a great way to ensure it will run well on your system before investing in a full copy. FS2020 is available as part of Microsoft’s monthly subscription, Game Pass. A PC-only Game Pass subscription is a relatively cheap way to test FS2020. Even at lower visual settings, both programs are a great way to hone your skills in weather that would be dangerous to try in real life without support. This lets you practice both the flight performance and procedures you want to brush up on.
To add even more realism, there are services like PilotEdge and VATSIM (Virtual Air Traffic Simulation Network) that provide virtual air traffic services so you can practice procedures with ATC, in some cases guided by actual air traffic controllers. This kind of extension of computer-based flight sims allows for very realistic IFR operations and practice. Especially on a weak point for many pilots, radio communications. Getting virtual radio reps can make you more comfortable and means you have more attention to focus on other tasks. The addition of air traffic services is a significant advancement since I was learning to fly and allows you to practice IFR operations in a much more realistic fashion than having your instructor provide canned instructions.
To VR or not to VR …
That is the question. There are additional costs, both financial and time, that virtual reality (VR) imposes versus a traditional monitor-based PC system. You will need more powerful and expensive components and will also have to spend time getting everything properly set up. However, VR technology, once properly qualified, could help bring down the cost of flight training and make routine training more attainable.
The advantage VR provides is best summed up in one word — immersion. It does make you feel much more connected to the experience. For practicing the performance aspect, immersion can help. I still remember when that fact really hit me. I was practicing a touch-and-go, and my final approach got a bit unstable. I could “feel” it in a very similar way to what I would in a real airplane. That connection makes the experience a much higher fidelity one. Regarding practicing aircraft control, the higher the fidelity, the better. Unlike process and procedure practice, where reducing fidelity can be valuable, aircraft control is a different beast. Especially in a consequence-free virtual environment, you want the most realistic conditions.
Building Your Own Triangle
We’ve discussed dissecting proficiency into planning, performance, and procedures. From there, we looked at ways to hone each of those facets. I would propose a second triangle, a fidelity triangle. The fidelity triangle consists of high, medium, and low-fidelity approaches. It’s not necessarily equilateral, but varies based on available time and conditions. High-fidelity training, i.e., flying the airplane, will likely be the short leg in this shape. Lining up the conditions, an instructor, and disposable income can be challenging. It’s also a good block of time. The minimum time commitment for a flight would be 2–3 hours total for an hour in the air. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t take advantage of the opportunity; it’s just that the chances will be limited in our busy lives.
The medium-fidelity training would be ATD or computer simulation. There’s a spectrum in quality from a high-end ATD, to a VR setup, to a basic computer. While it’s not the real thing, it offers better availability and controllable conditions. When possible, try to work in periodic sessions in an ATD as a good check-up. It can be a cost-effective way to ensure you are on a good path regarding your proficiency. ATDs may also allow you to log the time and experience under certain circumstances. You can use your home-based system to brush up on any deficiencies the ATD sessions uncover. If you’re working from home, you can also pop in and do a quick approach or any other procedure that’s giving you trouble before your next check-up.
The wide variety of technology available to us today gives us many daily opportunities to work towards greater proficiency.
Low-fidelity training can still serve a purpose. This would include things like practice briefings and planning. Although I would argue that the task’s fidelity is high as it’s functionally the same regardless of intent to fly, from an effort and ease of operation standpoint, it is much more accessible than the above-listed tasks. You can even do it in a waiting room before an appointment or meeting. Other low-fidelity tasks include working with training software to dig into your avionics suite or reading manuals or safety publications like this one. Keeping your mind engaged in aviation is an excellent way to keep proficiency a priority. It also can inform your priorities for higher fidelity training. Did you see conditions in a briefing or accident report and wonder how you might deal with them? Why not give it a try in the virtual environment of an ATD or PC sim? That experience can then feed back into your personal minimums and future flight planning.
How you balance that triangle in pursuit of a well-honed proficiency triangle will depend on your circumstances. Over time, you can refine your triangle and balance your fidelity needs to stay proficient. This will change over time and will require rebalancing. The wide variety of technology available to us today gives us many daily opportunities to work towards greater proficiency. But once you have a base, you can work from there and find the right mix to keep you safe and proficient in the future.
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James Williams is FAA Safety Briefing’s associate editor and photo editor. He is also a pilot and ground instructor.
