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Last year, Georgia Aviation Technical College (GATC) purchased two simulators for about $2.1 million to upgrade existing simulator training. The King Air simulates a six-passenger plane and the Citation simulates a jet. They bear an astonishing resemblance to a real airplane cockpit. The interior has two seats — for pilot and copilot — and a dashboard covered with a slew of dials. There’s a throttle, headphones, seatbelts, windows. Five projectors display digital images of earth, sky and the Memphis airport and surrounding area onto huge screens. So why Memphis? “The Memphis airport has different runways from so many angles that you can practice lots of approaches,” Newberry explains.
From a computer, the instructor keys in scenarios: changes in light, wind, clouds, icing, turbulence and equipment failure. In simulators, there’s no expensive fuel or insurance required. Moreover, there’s no fear of crashing. “Most of the training in the simulator is emergency training,” Newberry says. “I can expose the students to multi-scenarios, say an engine out and an icing situation.” Todd Walker, a 2002 graduate from the Flight Technology program, interns as an instructor. “It’s the most cost-effective way to practice,” he says. “You just couldn’t go up in the air and simulate engine failure, turbulence and icing to see how the plane reacts.” “In
years to come, simulation is going to play a bigger and bigger role
because training costs and traffic congestion in the air are both
growing,” says Andy Lundell, president of GATC. “Plus,
there are more Real
world trainers
The Practical Network Cabling Trainer is the size of a closet, with tons of cables and plugs. It teaches students how to set up complex wiring, including audio visual wiring, Ethernet network wiring and fiber optics. The third device is much smaller, the size of a shoebox. The Lucent Fitel fusion splicer teaches students to meld fiber optics, a delicate yet crucial task. “It’s important to make a seamless meld so there is no loss of power,” Ogles says. “It melts two pieces of fiber together through a plasma arc.” Teeny-tiny fibers, that is. “You’re dealing with a wire the size of a human hair,” says student Joe Jaillet. “The first time I did a splice, it took eight hours.”
That’s the kind of success story Ogles likes to hear. “You can’t learn some skills from a textbook,” Ogles explains. “Hands-on skills turn information into knowledge.” The trainers help ensure that students are well-versed with industry standards. “It is my goal that our classrooms are equipped with this cutting-edge technology so that our students enter the workforce experienced and prepared,” says Janet Ayers, president of West Central Technical College. Virtual
driving Southeastern Tech student Kylie Toler learned how to shift gears on one of two GE Capitol I-Sim Simulators, which the college purchased with a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Hop on the simulator and you’ll quickly discover that shifting gears on a truck isn’t as easy as shifting on a car. First, a car has four or five gears. A truck has eight to 10 gears — sometimes more. Second, you’ve got to double-pump the clutch to get it in gear. Third, the gearshift is heavy. “You’ve got to use a little force to get it in gear,” says student Dewayne Outler. When you mess up and strip a gear, the simulator tells you — loudly. Kaaaaatch! “You get the same sounds as in a real truck — the noise, the vibration,” Outler says. For Karl Schoen, lead instructor, simulators save money. “There’s no possibility of tearing up the transmission as the student is learning,” Schoen says. “A new transmission costs about $10,000.”
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Hart, transportation manager of DOT Foods, applauds the simulator training.
They have hired drivers directly from Southeastern Tech’s program.
“It’s good to teach in a controlled environment where you
can examine a student’s weaknesses and fix them.”
Once students master the gearshift, they advance to a real truck on Southeastern’s new driving track, which Schoen designed. Most driving tracks are flat, square surfaces. “Our track is designed in a figure eight, and each curve is a different radius, so they have to learn to turn at different degrees — wide turns, right turns.” The program was started entirely by community support and grants. “I kept hearing from business and industry that this was the program we needed,” says Dr. Cathy Meehan, president of Southeastern Tech, “And we’ve had many generous donations from local businesses and the Toombs-Montgomery Development Authority.” Flint River Technical College also incorporated two GE Capitol I-Sim Simulators into its Commercial Truck Driving program. Purchased in 2002, the simulators were funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Novice students are much more comfortable learning on the simulators, notes Tony Hardy, the program’s lead instructor, who has 15 years of experience in truck driving and teaching. “Since we’ve gotten these simulators, the shifting ability of students has doubled,” Hardy says. “It really relaxes them. They aren’t afraid to make mistakes on the simulators. They can really listen to what we are saying and learn.” Flint
River Technical College President Kathy Love agrees. "Students
are able to become comfortable at the gears and controls of many different
types of simulated trucks and are much more at ease when they are behind
the wheel of our range trucks and over-the-road vehicles. It would be
great if every program we offered had access to training aids such as
this.”
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No
one wants to get in a plane with a pilot who’s only read about
flying. Or share the road with a truck driver who’s browsed
a manual or two. For safety and cost concerns, these students learn
on simulators — machines that offer an imitation of reality.
Georgia’s technical colleges boast a bevy of advanced simulators
and trainers designed to give students “real life” experience
without leaving the classroom.
The
Advanced Test Products B25 PC Test & Hard Drive Duplication Station
resembles a board with the innards of a computer exposed. It teaches
students to diagnose and repair hardware problems, says Paul Ogles,
electronics instructor. “You can take any computer that is having
a problem, take out the motherboard, put it on this [machine] and
troubleshoot what’s wrong.”
Now,
Jaillet can splice a wire in 30 minutes.
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Altamaha Tech’s Brenda Madan is no simulator rookie. As lead instructor in the Commercial Truck Driving program, Madan introduced nine simulators in her classroom in 1997.
The simulators are wired to the instructor's computers. “It’s a tattletale. It tells me if they steer left or right, how they react,” says Rickie Morey, senior instructor. “It’s so real,” says Carolyn Edge, a recent graduate. “I gained a more heightened awareness of my surroundings than I ever had before.” Truck driving provides a handsome living, Madan notes. “Some of our women who graduate have never made more than minimum wage. Now, they have a $50,000- to $60,000-a-year job.” Edge graduated in September 2003 and quickly landed a job with U.S. Xpress Enterprise Inc. “It feels good to be in that truck and feel the power,” Edge says. The Doron Vehicle Maneuvering Trainer teaches students how to back up, a complex task. This two-story device doesn’t use digital images. Instead, the second floor contains a miniature city. There are loading docks, tiny trees, sidewalks — and a two-foot-long model truck. Tiny cameras mounted inside the truck are projected onto the first-floor screen. Students sit in the simulator and guide the tiny truck, learning how to back up to a loading dock. Camera projections and gear resistance mean both the city and truck look life-size. “Backing is one of the hardest jobs for a trucker and the most difficult skill to learn,” says Ronnie Carter, Commercial Truck Driving instructor. “This gives them almost the same sensation as a real truck. It’s so realistic that one or two students have gotten motion sickness during training.” Total
cost for this set of simulators: $287,340. “We have probably paid
for our simulators in fuel savings alone,” says Altamaha Tech
President C. Paul Scott. “These simulators are a great cost-effective
teaching tool for us.” |
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Click here for Adobe PDF Version of this page
TABLE OF CONTENTS | COVER | FROM THE COMMISSIONER | TECH TALK THE PRETENDERS | SUCCESS FILES | RISKY BUSINESS | HEATING THINGS UP | A RESOURCE FOR BUSINESS COMPETITIVE EDGE | ECONOMIC CHAMPIONS | CHANGING LIVES | PRESIDENT’S PERSPECTIVE MAP OF SCHOOLS | GEORGIA'S TECHNICAL COLLEGE SYSTEM |
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The
first lab contains eight Doron Simulators. Here, students complete an
eight-hour defensive driving class. A large-screen video displays perilous
situations from the truck driver’s point of view: crossing a narrow
bridge, a car zooming into the wrong lane, a pedestrian darting into
traffic. Students respond by swerving, stopping and turning.