Flight simulator technologies are developing to include more artificial intelligence and machine learning, as Robin Glover-Faure, VP sales and marketing, L3Harris, tells Bernie Baldwin.
When your company’s lineage in flight simulation goes right back to Ed Link, the acknowledged inventor of the flight simulator, the adoption of today’s pioneering technologies is to be fully expected. With names such as Link-Miles, Rediffusion, Thomson, Thales and CTC behind it, L3Harris is determined to maintain that leadership position, according to Robin Glover-Faure, VP sales and marketing.
L3Harris’s latest developments are focused on providing major upgrades to existing products, which are wide-ranging. Glover-Faure begins his run through with the full flight simulators (FFSs).
“Most people will be familiar with our Reality 7 product. We’ve re-launched that this year in the form of the Reality 7E. Effectively a refresh, it’s a lighter product, which has integrated the latest technologies and allows us to remain competitive in terms of the price of production. That’s what customers are taking delivery of now,” he explains.
Glover-Faure says the 7E’s main benefit for customers is that it provides a more economical platform from some of the spares usage, the cost of running and sustainability, “which is top of the list for airlines as they seek to demonstrate in their supply chain that they are addressing sustainability”.
“It certainly meets that goal,” he declares. “Also, being lighter, with new materials, the Reality 7E still provides all the required training fidelity but also enables L3Harris to demonstrate a strong ESG footprint. It’s a better all-round product, which allows those using the simulator to demonstrate that they themselves have chosen more environmentally sound products to carry out their training.
“If you want to use the analogy to a human being, the brain is the same, but the body is a lot fitter,” the VP continues. “What we’re trying to do is keep the business end of the product – the software and the simulation of flight – unchanged, but express that in a much leaner platform. Additionally, the design means that in terms of wastage of spares, we’ve tried to engineer that out as well. That’s all part of meeting the sustainability agenda.”
The net zero objective
Sustainability was the Word of the Week at Farnborough recently, which does not surprise Glover-Faure. “Everybody’s got the mindset for the net zero 2050 challenge. We know that some big things like sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), and perhaps hydrogen, may well come, though I don’t think many expect the latter to provide much of a benefit before 2050.
“We’re busy upgrading in line with the manufacturers’ updates. The OEMs update their devices in terms of the standard that they use, that reflect the latest software that’s deployed on, let’s say, the A320. We’re upgrading all our devices accordingly,” he reports.
Among the upgrades is the material to aid readiness for the A321 XLR. Now in its flight test programme, with entry into service targeted for early 2024, airlines will want to have their pilots going into simulators during the next 12 to 18 months.
“It’s on public record that Airbus will upgrade the simulator standard away from the A320 and base it on the A321, which will have the e-rudder, which is already on the A350, the Boeing 787 and the 777.
Wanting to train your pilots in a device that can replicate e-rudder is going to be critical, because e-rudder training procedures are typically used for engine failure after takeoff, which is a prime manoeuvre that you train in the simulator. Customers and airlines are going to want to be able to train their pilots on that standard,” Glover-Faure remarks.
Mixed requirements met
The move is, of course, a natural progression for a company like L3Harris – a leading provider of these tools – to be ready for the next aircraft to come along.
“There’s also work being done on flight training devices (FTDs), products that we started developing about two years ago. They are basically simulators with the same software loads, but we just don’t put motion on them,” Glover-Faure elaborates.
“You might therefore ask, where does the saving come from? Okay, there’s a saving on the motion mechanisms, but the real saving comes from the data feeds, because they’re devices which are regulated or certified at a lower level. On that basis, even though it’s exactly the same software, Airbus and Boeing charge a lower price for the licence when it’s utilised on those types of devices.
“What customers have found is that they can actually mix FFS and FTD training. And because they’re paying a lower price for the FTD, they get a total solution comprising two devices at a cost lower than buying two FFSs,” he comments.
It may appear counterintuitive for L3Harris, which wants to sell FFSs in considerable numbers, to push FTDs too, but the company takes the view that those devices are what customers want. “We’ve sold about seven or eight FTDs so far, across the A320, the 737 MAX and also a Boeing 787 to Lufthansa. We’ve got an A350 in service with Delta, too.”
Put simply, L3Harris has been meeting the market demand. If the company hadn’t created its own FTDs, customers would most likely have gone elsewhere.
“That’s exactly what it is and it’s going really well,” Glover-Faure reports. The 787 FFS acquired by Lufthansa is now in service in Frankfurt and in November 2022, we’re delivering the FTD.”
Given the complexities of full flight simulators and other training devices, Glover-Faure acknowledges that they are candidates for increasing levels of digitalisation, involving artificial intelligence and machine learning. L3Harris has been working in this area for a while, he confirms.
Pragmatic data
“We’ve actually set up a new business division within L3Harris. We’re about 5%-6% of the revenue of the total organisation, a very large defence company. So we’re run as the commercial aviation sector and within that, we created our data analytics division. The logic is that we see the application of data not just being applicable to our training devices, but also in our pilot academies, using digital insights,” the VP explains.
“On the other side of our business, which is the avionics side, we have a lot of our flight data recorders out there. That gets us into the exciting territory of line operations. Most chief operating officers, who have engineering and flight ops under their remit, have more data than they know what to do with – it’s an absolute feast.
“The problem is, it’s a dearth of information. Because from that data, how do you get the insights? Going back to the sustainability point raised earlier, a lot of COOs are rightly being asked, ‘Can you measure the reduction of your airline’s greenhouse gases?’, ‘Can you prove that you are changing to procedures that are more efficient, use less fuel, have less waste, and that the airline is progressing towards its targets?’
“One way that we foresee doing that is working with airlines to capture the data – the jargon is ‘creating a data lake’ – which will be anonymised. We can hold that data wherever the airline wants – on site or in the ether, on the internet. We’ll give them options,” he emphasises.
Turning data into intelligence
L3Harris will then create tools that allow access to the data and therefore get insights from apps which can be used by pilots or by operations. Crucially, if they so desire, they can compare their operational performance against the average of the consolidated pool. This is where the company believes the value is.
Glover-Faure explains that the company can then ask clients, for example, if they want to know for their A320 operation into Heathrow, whether or not they are using the average amount of fuel from the top of descent to landing, above the average or below the average? “And, of course, a lot of people will want to know where their airline is on the scale,” he remarks.
“If the client is 10% below the average, that means that other A320 operators going into Heathrow have found a more efficient way. That gives insights as to where the airline might want to think about changing procedures. It might be lowering the gear at a different point or the way the holding pattern is being flown. We can look at ground operations too. For example, is the shutting down of one of the engines when vacating the runway entirely in line with the OEM procedures? The insights drawn can improve performance and sustainability,” Glover-Faure states.
While all this is part of operations, use of these insights is used in training too. Data, such as flying the glideslope into Heathrow in the most efficient way, can be fed into the simulators so that it becomes the standard to which the candidates learn to fly. “They’re truly learning to fly in an airline style,” the VP stresses.
As for artificial intelligence usage, the company is beginning to see in training – particularly in simulators but also in its academy – data points that correlate. “You can then use AI to start searching for the correlating data points,” says Glover-Faure. “From those you can start to forecast and project where trainees will need additional support, purely by looking at historical performance. If you take engine failures after takeoff, you may well see there’s a correlation between how well trainees perform in a different part of the course correlates to how well they’ll perform, single-engined after takeoff.
“We often talk about evidence-based training and that’s what this is. It’s using the evidence coming from line operations, from the training performance of pilots, to be able to adapt training to be as effective as it possibly can and also reduce repeat training,” he adds. “[Use of AI] basically derives a greater performance from a set amount of training. You get more out of the four hours than you would have done just doing standard manoeuvres.”
Glover-Faure reports that L3Harris is about halfway through its development programme. “We’ve already invested the money and are busy creating the tools we intend to go to airlines. They will be coming in the second half of this year into next year.
“And we’ve already got a tool that we’re making available to airlines, which is for non-technical skills. It allows the training pilots to observe and record the non-technical skills. And again, what we’re doing there is using artificial intelligence to link correlations between workload management, decision making, teamwork, and looking again, for areas that can give insights into more effective training,” the VP states.
Thus, the increasing use of digital technologies will surely assist L3Harris as it aims to ensure that its links to the past breed the future of effective pilot training.
Author: Bernie Baldwin
Published: 25th October 2022
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