By Capt. Bryan Burks, UPRT SME at Alaska Airlines - In 2009, an International Working Group (ICATEE) commenced activity to provide guidance to industry in how to reduce LOC-I accidents. Simulators remain the most common tool in pilot training, but there were questions regarding the ability of enhancements to address LOC-I. Over the next five years, enhanced aero-models were developed which could provide representative aircraft behavior for simulators in upsets and aerodynamic stalls.

Alaska Airlines began to deliver enhanced UPRT to their pilots in 2012, 7 years prior to FAA mandates for UPRT. Much has been learned from introducing 30 minute blocks of UPRT in recurrent training every year since. This progression validated that the most efficient use of simulators in UPRT was as the finishing “tool” in presenting accurate, realistic maneuvers that demonstrated basic aerodynamic principles that pilots must be intimately aware of.

When Alaska Airlines transitioned from analog displays to modern Primary Flight Displays (PFDs) in the 1990’s, the curricula was adapted to emphasize the wealth of new dynamic data available to the pilot encompassing energy state, flight path, and trends. New blocks of UPRT leveraged these displays, combining them with maneuver sets which provided force feedback to pilots through the flight controls. Each UPRT maneuver was designed to demonstrate a practical application of basic aerodynamic concepts that a pilot could “see and feel” in interaction with the simulator. Beginning with basic manual maneuvers without flight directors in the normal envelope, the curricula was expanded to demonstrate degraded performance outside the normal envelope, and in the marked differences between low and high altitude flight. Pilots responded favorably to the new training, and a vigorous analysis of FOQA data indicates that since these initiatives began in 2012, there has been a steady and significant reduction in low speed precursor rates and other data relevant to mitigating LOC-I.