Digital simulation tools in aviation maintainability training

Abstract

AbstractAviation maintenance needs to be continuously improved for many reasons: flight safety, the health of maintenance operators, and saving time and costs among other reasons. To preventively improve the working conditions, the Maintainability Department—the department designing the maintenance activity in the Technical Design Office—develops and uses simulation tools such as Virtual‐Reality (VR). To improve maintenance, maintainability stakeholders must perform Human Factors analysis through simulation tools. However, the use of VR requires specific knowledge and skills that should be learned by students in the university. The aim of this paper is to study the use of VR as a Teaching & Training tool as well as an Industrial tool in real on‐the‐job cases. Over 2 years (between 2018 and 2020), we have trained and observed 112 students. Two main surveys have been used, the first one at the beginning of the academic year (to better know students' previous experience in VR) and the second survey at the end of the year (to get students' feedback regarding their training year with VR). We have formulated and presented recommendations to apply better inductive‐deductive teaching approaches offering more cases studies and a better understanding of aviation maintenance by students. We have also made recommendations to improve the use of VR, for example, to reduce the discrepancies and inaccuracies between the virtual and real worlds.