An online training program created decades ago to teach aviation English to foreign pilots is finding a new purpose at an aviation college in the Midwest to educate future air traffic controllers (ATCs).
USIM was created by Captain Alejandro Perez, an airline pilot from Mexico who realized that while English is the official language of aviation, aviation itself is a global phenomenon—and sometimes the language barrier leads to challenges and outright dangerous situations.
“I am what the FAA called a foreign airline pilot,” Perez said. “Flying in and out of the United States can be a challenge because the pilots are on instrument flight plans and often the air traffic controllers speak too fast, and when English is not your first language, [and even if it is] it can be hard to keep up.”
Although pilots are required to be English proficient, there is a difference between conversational English learned in a classroom and aviation English used in the cockpit.
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“There is too much traffic, too many frequencies to change, and that’s a very different world,” Perez said.
Perez knew the value of using simulators for scenario-based training from his experience as an airline pilot, when they are exposed to emergency events they may never experience but need to know how to address, such as bird strikes, dual hydraulic failures, and wing fires.
“I thought to myself, we have used simulators for many, many years now, and simulators are more sophisticated every time,” he said. “I think the best way to grade and to learn and to train foreign pilots is to use a simulator.”
USIM is used by pilots around the world and in several training programs, such as Phoenix East Aviation, Daytona Beach Airport (KDAB), Epic Flight Academy, New Smyrna Beach Airport (KEBV), Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, Young Yao Airlines, Pan Am International Flight Academy, Sun State Aviation, Aviator College of Aeronautical Science and Technology, multiple companies in Mexico, and individual student pilots from five continents. Most of the pilots are training to fly for air carriers.
According to Perez, USIM uses retired FAA ATCs who interact with the pilots learning aviation English. Just as they do in the real world, the controllers keep track of all the pilots they are working with in their particular area and provide instructions.
USIM is also available at the university and college level, according to course coordinator Alice Perez.
“We rent out the USIM to flight schools that are interested,” Perez said.
Heather McNevin, from Aitken, Minnesota, is one of the retired controllers hired by USIM.
“I saw other potential for the use of USIM, so I asked to use it,” McNevin said.
McNevin holds multiple pilot certificates, including instructor ratings, and serves as an assistant professor at Minnesota State University at Mankato. She teaches classes in the Part 141 program using USIM to give students an idea of what they will need to do to communicate with ATCs and other pilots in the real world.
One of the classes is the fundamentals of air traffic control, which helps pilots understand ATC from the controllers’ perspective. Each class begins with a ground session with PowerPoint slides, and the second half incorporates USIM. McNevin breaks the class of 25-40 students into groups of 10 or so for the USIM sessions.
“We’re talking about people that want to become flight instructors, [so] we’re going to talk about teaching things in the pattern, talk about how to teach phraseology pattern entries, and they can kind of do things,” McNevin said. “And then I can send messages to the student that only the student and I see, so I could send one a message saying, ‘Quit talking on the radio,’ and [then I] just get in everybody’s way—take off the wrong runway, cut somebody off in the pattern, and then the other students then have to adapt and see what’s going on. So it’s been a really interesting tool, and we’re the only university in Minnesota using it, and we’re going to expand our use for not just the air traffic control, but the flight instructors, and kind of let them see what’s going on.”
Creating Chaos
One of the best uses of USIM is that it can create scenarios you would never want to encounter in the real world, such as runway incursions and task saturation.
It can also re-create past high-profile accidents, such as the recent LaGuardia Airport (KLGA) runway incursion, or situations specific to a season, such as a snowplow pulling onto a snow-covered runway when there is an aircraft on short final.
Make It Local
The scenarios are built by David Arroyo, USIM programmer and content creator. According to McNevin, all she has to do is make a request and Arroyo creates it.
“I can create whatever kind of scenario I need,” McNevin said. “And I can change the call signs. I can change the icons. I can change what’s going on in the background—is it the chart or is it like this, or is it Google Earth? Are there airspace lines, like what all do I need? I just tell David, and he makes it happen.”
For the purpose of this FLYING article, Arroyo created a scenario background for King County International Airport-Boeing Field (KBFI) and Auburn Municipal Airport (S50), which are two of the busier airports for flight training in the Seattle area.
These airports are at the end of the flight training spectrum, as KBFI is one of the busiest airports in the country in terms of cargo and jet traffic. The parallel runways can be confusing to the unfamiliar. Auburn is one of the busiest nontowered general aviation airports in the region with intensive flight training.
I can see how using USIM with fledgling students, especially those pursuing instructor ratings, would be beneficial, as the practice area can be more crowded than the pattern, and preparing for return to landing when the pilot is task saturated can be dicey. If they have rehearsed overload scenarios, they are much better able to address the situation if and when it manifests in the real world.
Sometimes McNevin sends a discreet message to one of the students with instructions to do something procedurally incorrect to give the other learners the experience of dealing with a pilot who is going rogue.
“…I can assign some people different airplanes, and then give them a card [where they’re] going to confuse this taxiway with this taxiway, and then we’re going to see what happens. It’s been a really interesting tool.”
