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Aircraft Maintenance Technology
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3-D'Virtual Task Trainers'
Speeding up MRO technicians training|
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By James Careless
AMT Contributor
Imagine that you’ve been told to repair a T56 engine on a Lockheed Martin 130 Hercules.
Rather than having to pull out the manuals, however, you simply grab a ruggedized laptop or PDA loaded with virtual task training software. It provides hyper-realistic three-dimensional images of the T56 engine at a level of detail that puts computer game graphics to shame.
That’s not all: these 3-D images, called ‘knowledge objects,’ are interactive. Click on a given subsystem and you get new images showing you what’s inside. This virtual training software also offers animations explaining how to disassemble and reassemble the systems before you. It even lets you ‘rehearse’ doing so in cyberspace, without needing to lift an actual tool.
You don’t have to imagine this product anymore — it exists.
The 3-D software developer NGRAIN (www.ngrain.com) and the MRO company Standard Aero (www.standardaero.com) have created such a laptop/PDA-based virtual task trainer, known as an Advanced Interactive Electronic Technical Manual (A/IETM), for the Hercules T56 engine.
“To our knowledge, this is the most detailed 3-D model of an engine ever created,” says Jim Henry, Standard Aero’s vice president of technology development.
NGRAIN and Standard Aero developed the program for the Canadian Forces (CF) to help maintain their C130 Hercules aircraft in theaters such as Afghanistan.
“The T-56 A/IETM from NGRAIN and Standard Aero can help the Canadian Forces deliver more productive operational support to the ‘video gamer’ generation,” notes the CF’s Lieutenant Colonel Bruce Cooke. “We can now potentially assess and adapt how subject matter is covered and supported to fit new requirements in the field.”
Overview
The A/IETM concept is a radical departure from older technician training methods. Fundamentally, this concept frees technicians from leafing through paper manuals, trying to pick out the information they need from reams of print. Instead, they can see the systems they are working on in an accurate and easily understandable 3-D perspective. Given just how visually oriented actual aircraft maintenance is, the A/IETM is a far more appropriate training tool than what has gone before.
