Training airline pilots to recover control from a stall - Main contents

Source: Directorate-General Research & Innovation (RTD) i, published on Wednesday, April 27 2016.

Pilots around the world can practise recovering control of their aircraft after entering a stall, using a simulation model developed by the EU-funded SUPRA project. By simulating such situations, the project fills a gap in current pilot training, and aims to improve air travel safety.

The SUPRA model is currently being used at the Desdemona flight simulator, located in Soesterberg, the Netherlands. The simulator is being used to research pilot performance in extreme flight situations and to train commercial pilots to recognise and recover from stalls.

A training course has been developed out of the research and is currently being offered to airlines around the world. Desdemona - with its unique motion platform - is capable of reproducing the g-forces associated with stall recovery, providing pilots with a realistic experience of aeroplane behaviour in these extreme situations.

“As this training is not yet being mandated by aviation authorities, operators decide on a voluntary basis to send their pilots to Desdemona, which some are doing,” says project coordinator Eric Groen of TNO i.

Regulators, including the European Aviation Safety Agency, are currently developing rules that will mandate upset prevention and recovery training for commercial pilots, Groen says. This may involve extending simulator capabilities to reproduce aeroplane behaviour in stalled conditions. The SUPRA model offers this training component.

The SUPRA model can be used by manufacturers to retrofit existing simulators, or to develop new ones that represent extended flight training. Project partner AMST is currently developing a standard simulator with the SUPRA flight model into a dedicated training device for stalls.

The SUPRA project ended in August 2012. Since then, TNO and Boeing have developed a tool to help in the analysis of flight data recorder information to determine the possible contribution of a pilot’s spatial disorientation to an accident. “The tool is based on collected data on pilot perceptions that was used within SUPRA to evaluate the fidelity of simulator motion,” Groen says. “The ‘Spatial Disorientation’ tool is another application of the same model; hence it is a nice spin-off project for TNO.”