Simulator aims to speed training for McCarran air traffic controllers

If guiding airliners into McCarran International Airport on a typical sunny day becomes too routine, then just a few keystrokes can whip up a snowstorm.

Or gusting winds of 35 knots.

Or a night with the Strip's twinkling lights in the background.

Or a jet that has lost an engine.

For most of the past 77 years, the Federal Aviation Administration and its predecessors have trained air traffic controllers for a particular airport by putting them in the tower, having them watch their co-workers and learn by doing. Now, the FAA hopes to speed up training with a $900,000 computer simulator, complete with a sweeping animated view of McCarran that mimics what controllers see in the real tower, that can tap into a menu of weather conditions or emergency scenarios.

In 2003, the FAA installed the first of 14 simulators at its training academy in Oklahoma City, the initial stop in becoming a controller, then began rolling them out to the field four years later. The Las Vegas simulator, which was put on display Wednesday, became number 22 outside the academy when it went live in Las Vegas on May 31 at a nondescript FAA building three miles east of the airport.

"This gives us the ability to stop, replay and learn from situations," said Jim Burgan, the air traffic manager at McCarran control tower. "Other places have experienced a 20-to-30 percent reduction in training time."

FAA spokesman Ian Gregor termed the simulator an example of "how we try to push the envelope in adopting technology."

But similar simulators have been used in pilot training for decades, as computers became powerful enough to drive the sophisticated graphics.

"There's always to balance of needs and priorities being evaluated in the FAA," Burgan said. "Funding is always a challenge as well."

The heart of the Las Vegas simulator is the semicircle of tall video displays that re-create the tower view and envelop a counter that has several screens with information such as weather and radar positions. Flanking the main deck are "cockpits," where trainer pilots talk to the controllers as they would if they were somewhere out there, at the controls.

While the hardware is not very exotic, it still took about 10 months to complete the Las Vegas software. Even that, FAA consultants said, was faster than it has been at some other locations.

The process starts with photographing the area, much like Google does for its maps feature, then reworking it into an animated facsimile so complete you can spot the "Phantom of the Opera" billboard on the airport's exit road. The programmers also have to build in airplane movements that replicate those of local air traffic, such as how a plane landing to the east would clear the mountains.

While the snow and rain modes make the image grainy, the strong wind that is the city's most frequent weather malady cannot be represented except as a dust cloud. However, Burgan said, the planes can be programmed to bounce around in strong winds or take longer to brake on a wet runway.

Airliners show up on the wall panels as being only a few inches long, depending on the distance, but they can be enlarged to show the pilot's view from the cockpit or above.

As the center of an air traffic district, the Las Vegas simulator will eventually include similar vistas from five other airports as far away as Reno and Santa Barbara, Calif.

"There is a big difference at every airport," Burgan said. However, Burgan said there is no timetable for addition of other locations.

The training regimen is divided into four blocks that a trainee follows in order: landing only; takeoff only; both takeoffs and landings; and unusual situations. Each block contains three variables: 50 percent of regular traffic, 100 percent and 110 percent.

Once trainees master 50 percent of a block, they move to 100 percent and then 110 percent, before going to the next block. The cycle takes about four weeks.

The current class includes 10 people.

Veteran controllers will also be brought in for refreshers in situations that -- hopefully -- arise infrequently in real life.

Contact reporter Tim O'Reiley at toreiley@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5290.