Aircraft Maintenance Technology - 44

PRODUCT UPDATE

smartphone, personal device, or desktop
PC, and be training from anywhere."

BETTER QUALITY GRADUATES
Simulation not only increases student
throughput, it also improves the quality of
the student coming out of training, Genna
and Hayward report.
"We all learn in different ways, but most
people learn a lot more if the training is
interactive," Genna says. "In the old days,
you would have read a manual, then you
would have performed the repair. You
probably would have done it once, because
there are not that many devices to use. Or,
you may not have gotten a chance to do it
on your own. You may have only watched
someone else do the repair."

high-fidelity task trainers that address
specific tasks that are commonly performed," he says. "But for uniquely difficult tasks, or where there is a complex
piece of support equipment that you
want to teach a student how to physically use, a physical training environment works best."
Training a student to do an engine
change on a C-17, for example, is best
done in the physical world. "There are
a lot of unique elements to doing that
engine change," Hayward says. "From
how the engine comes off the pylon to
how it goes onto the engine lift trailer,
to how you position the engine lift
trailer; all of that is taught best in the
physical world."

"If you have a virtual classroom, you can
have ... multiple students performing
tasks at the same time."

- John Hayward, Senior Vice President and General Manager,
TRU Simulation + Training's Government division

Simulation training leverages 3-D technology to represent an aircraft, engine,
or aircraft component in the virtual
space and then uses artificial intelligence
or machine learning to keep track of
what a student is doing and give cues
or scoring on performance. Genna continues, "With simulation training, everyone has access to the technology, and
because of that, they're all going to learn
it, and it's going to be much more interactive. They're going to understand the
material and because of the technology
available to them, they can practice a
lot more on their own to become even
more proficient."
The best outcomes, however, utilize a
blended solution where the virtual world
meets the classroom world, reports
Hayward. "We offer physical fidelity or

44 JUNE/JULY 2019

However, he adds, "If you are talking about performing engine borescope
or maybe an engine oil change, this
can be taught with other media like
an interactive multimedia instruction.
These things would be perfect for a
virtual reality solution where you put
on a set of goggles and work a borescope probe through your hand while
seeing the engine through virtual reality goggles."
Genna adds, "Simulation answers the
question of: How do I train people with
the right rules in place to do something
correctly? More importantly, if they are
doing it wrong, how can I give them the
proper instructional oversight to correct that? In the old days, a lot of that
oversight may have come from people.
Nowadays, because of technology, that

oversight can come from a machine that
provides feedback, whether it's voice
communications or commands or simply
a warning signal."
Simulation technology also addresses the needs of today's learner. Genna
explains, "When a 19-year-old needs to
figure something out today, he goes to
the internet and finds a YouTube video.
When I was 19, if I needed to change
a carburetor, I would have bought a
Chilton's manual and read it. Today they
can find a video online and learn to do
it in five minutes."

BETTER ASSESSMENTS
Assessments with simulation trainers are
accomplished in two ways. For instance,
TRU's C-17 training, developed for the
Air Force, has students performing the
work with an instructor looking over their
shoulder. But the training system also
captures student actions so instructors
can review a student's actions and compare them to a set of expected results to
produce a student grade.
Genna reports simulations simplify student assessments, even when the tasks
are performed virtually, because every
maintenance task follows a maintenance
guide. "There is a set of instructions that
say do this first, then do this second, and
do this third," he says. In other words,
students know they need to torque this
bolt to 45 pounds, put proper lubricant on
this, etc. and that they must go through
the set of procedures in order. "If they
don't follow the procedure, the system
scores them accordingly," he says.
The F-35 training from TRU, which is
now a virtual training device, enables
instructors to virtually track each student's actions, but the scoring occurs
automatically within a grading algorithm
in the system itself. "This information is
used to flag the instructor when a student
is having an issue so that the instructor
can zoom in on that student and monitor
what they are doing," reports Hayward.
The F-35 student grading system examines the student's work, and if the student is struggling with a specific task,

AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGY

Aircraft Maintenance Technology

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