We are concerned with the training of Simulator Instructors, and to consider this matter we need to define the boundaries of knowledge within which the instructor must work.

I would suggest that there are four major areas which identify the boundaries. Firstly, there is the extent to which the instructor must be familiar with the handling and operation of the aircraft being simulated. On a reciprocal heading to that boundary is the extent of the knowledge he must have about the operation and function of the simulator itself.

One of my responsibilities is the day-to-day supervision of the various pilot examiner authorisations issued by CAA. These authorisations permit the holder to carry out various tests pursuant to Sch. 9 of the ANO. (For the benefit of those who think that Sch. 9 has something to do with income tax let me hasten to add that Sch. 9 lays down the requirements for licence certificates of test—aircraft type tests and instrument rating renewals.)

As you are aware ever increasing numbers of those Sch. 9 tests are conducted on simulators, or more correctly—simulators approved for that purpose. This creates two areas of input from CAA—approval of the device and authorisation of the examiner. The former is normally approved annually and the latter every three years.

When we talk of a flight simulator, we naturally contemplate something which is artificial, something which is inferior to the real thing—a substitute for the real aeroplane. There is a danger, therefore, that we might also think of the flight simulator instructor in the same terms —that he is someone who is inferior to the real thing, the flight instructor. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The flight simulator instructor needs to be a flight instructor who is additionally qualified to instruct on the simulator. He is therefore someone who is superior to just a flight instructor.

I am engaged in operating the B 737 mainly in Europe and my employer has utilised another operator's 737 flight simulator with three axis motion for some eight years for the purpose of training. Currently we are using a six-axis motion moving base 737 flight simulator with computer generated image visual attachment.

During this period the ratio of simulator to aircraft training for type conversion has changed progressively from 6 hours simulator and 12 hours aircraft initially, to approximately 32 hours simulator and 3 hours aircraft currently. Similarly the checking pattern has changed from using the simulator for the I/R and one competency check annually to the current practice of completing all refresher training, regulatory authority check requirements and some aspects of command training on the simulator.

Since the days of the first Link Trainer, flight trainers have played a small part in the initial training of most military and commercial pilots. The elementary types of trainer have been used successfully to teach new pilots the basics of instrument flying and subsequently how to fly instrument procedures on SBA, Radio Range, non-directional beacons, VOR and ILS.

Quite a lot of thought has been given from time to time to the possibility of extending the role of the trainer, for use as a pre-flight trainer perhaps, or to reduce the total amount of in-flight training and experience required for the issue of a licence.

In the beginning was the Link Trainer! It was from the Link Trainer that the simulator as we know it today descended. When the simulator was first introduced into airline service it was to some degree treated as a novelty. Instructors on the simulators fell into two categories—they were either in the minority, Link Trainer instructors, but in the main the fleet instructors from the aircraft types. They were ex-service RAF, Navy and CFS trained and they adapated themselves to the new form of aptitude tests. It is perhaps interesting that we look back over a quarter of a century to the time that BOAC, as it was, acquired its first simulator.

As the title of my presentation indicates, I believe that we have progressed beyond the question of whether formal flight simulator instructor training is necessary, and must instead consider how to keep the training a simulator instructor must undergo from attaining unmanageable proportions. Because my parent organisation is the Tactical Air Command of the United States Air Force, and my primary experience has been as F-16 Simulator Program Manager, my remarks will be from the point of view of a tactical fighter simulator instructor, and will reflect his particular requirement for formal training in simulator.

I propose to outline the Royal Air Force approach to flight simulator instructor training and indicate our intention regarding the pattern of pre-employment training of future simulator instructors. As you know the instructor task had its origins in the Link Trainer and perhaps there grew into being a ‘Link’ mentality which saw the ‘Box’ as suitable employment for aged or unfit aircrew who, through no fault of their own, had to be put out to pasture. This approach was accepted largely because simulators were regarded mainly as procedural trainers requiring only routine supervision and little originality in training methods.

The problem of flying in rough air has been appreciated since aircraft were first produced and I can best lead up to the position from which I intend to start by selecting information from summary documents by Donely in 1950 and Zbrozek in 1964. Philip Donely was a leading figure in the field of atmospheric turbulence loads before the 1939–45 war and probably the one most highly regarded in the world when he gave the keynote address to the Royal Aeronautical Society Conference on Atmospheric Tubulence in 1971. George Zbrozek had been an international authority for many years when he presented his main lecture to the Royal Aeronautical Society in 1964 and but for his untimely death whilst on an international mission might still be a leading figure.

The calculation of the pressure distribution, overall lift and moment coefficients on a two-dimensional aerofoil at low speeds, including boundary layer effects, is nowadays a fairly standard numerical technique. Experience has shown that as long as the flow remains attached, theory predicts experimental results extremely well for a ‘clean’ aerofoil. The purpose of this note is to point out that the application of the same theory to aerofoils with conventional trailing edge control surfaces leads to results which differ significantly from those measured in experiments.