Until recently, there were no equally convenient and effective tool for practical training for a wide range of specialists involved in various sectors of aviation industry that would allow minimization of human factor influence due to repetitive practice of different normal and abnormal procedures and situations through simulations as close to reality as possible.
At the same time, arrangement of practical sessions is one of the most important stages of training the personnel, as it is the only way to test and consolidate theoretical material learned in the classroom. An employee cannot be ready to work in a real airport unless he or she devotes sufficient time to practice.
Currently arrangement of practical sessions within the industry is associated with a number of difficulties from registration of access permits for the students to visit the restricted premises, and accompanying the group, to provision of safety of the trainees under conditions of intensive production processes, as well as prevention of damage to expensive equipment and machinery due to their fault. Besides, there is no always opportunity to arrange a visit to the real airport at a time convenient for the students, stay there for a sufficient period and have enough time to practice all variants of working scenarios development with all diversity of aircraft types, airport ramps and ground equipment. It is often impossible to provide access to a real aircraft due to high cost of its downtime; sometimes it is difficult even for airlines, as an aircraft should be flying as much as possible.
It should be also noted the in most cases the students are strictly prohibited to do anything themselves during such practical sessions, i. e. in fact, they can only watch and memorize what and how experienced operating employees do. This all leads to the fact that in terms of finances and organization, practical sessions are very complex and cost-intensive part of training the personnel. As a result many companies reduce duration and quality of practical sessions in order to spare the budget and finish training earlier, so that they graduate not properly qualified staff. Generally, the companies hope that more experienced colleagues will have enough time to share their experience with the new employees in the course of real work. No wonder it results in errors of the new employees, damage to equipment, and aircraft, accidents and delayed flights. Direct losses incurred by the companies in such cases, as well as indirect losses associated with insufficient safety level amount to hundreds of millions of euros. The problem of inadequate level of training the personnel is particularly acute today, when companies are striving to reduce their costs even more in pursuit of the common trend to make air tickets cheaper. Rather intensive personnel turnover within the industry, as well as growing competition also aggravate the problem.