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Thought Leadership: Preparing pilots of the future of fight

Words by Chris­t­ian Theuer­mann, exec­u­tive board mem­ber at AXIS Flight Sim­u­la­tion

Over the past ten years, the mar­ket for eVTOL air­craft has grown rapid­ly. With man­u­fac­tur­ers such as Joby Avi­a­tion and Archer Avi­a­tion cur­rent­ly in the test­ing phase of their air­craft, the real­i­ty of these air­craft becom­ing part of our day-to-day lives may only be around the cor­ner.

Exten­sive pilot train­ing with­in the avi­a­tion indus­try – both com­mer­cial and busi­ness – has always been a cru­cial com­po­nent of safe and scal­able deploy­ment, and eVTOLs will be no excep­tion.

Train­ing for eVTOLs brings a new set of chal­lenges, from unfa­mil­iar flight char­ac­ter­is­tics and evolv­ing reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works to the inte­gra­tion of advanced tech­nolo­gies. To stay ahead of the curve and ensure we’re ready for the arrival of eVTOLs, sim­u­la­tion-based train­ing is now more valu­able than ever.

How reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work is dri­ving change

The Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA) has recent­ly intro­duced a new rule, which estab­lish­es a new cat­e­go­ry of “pow­ered lift” air­craft with­in its reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work – under which eVTOLs will fall. This cre­ates a new set of require­ments for eVTOL pilots and train­ing instruc­tors, as well as oper­a­tional guide­lines, such an min­i­mum safe alti­tude and required vis­i­bil­i­ty.

In par­al­lel with these domes­tic efforts, the FAA has joined reg­u­la­tors from Aus­tralia, Cana­da, New Zealand and the UK to release a joint cer­ti­fi­ca­tion roadmap aimed at har­mon­is­ing glob­al stan­dards for air taxi oper­a­tions. The frame­work out­lines per­for­mance-based require­ments and val­i­da­tion pro­ce­dures designed to stream­line cer­ti­fi­ca­tion across bor­ders.

This is a crit­i­cal step for ensur­ing con­sis­tent pilot train­ing and oper­a­tional prac­tices in an inter­na­tion­al mar­ket. Sim­i­lar­ly, the Euro­pean Union Safe­ty Agency (EASA) has been evolv­ing its own reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work on eVTOLs, out­lin­ing safe­ty stan­dards, air oper­a­tion require­ments, and design and man­u­fac­tur­ing cri­te­ria. These guide­lines are part of a broad­er effort to inte­grate urban air mobil­i­ty (UAM) into Euro­pean cities, for pur­pos­es such as air taxis.

With ambi­tions to enable rev­enue flights as ear­ly as 2026 and finalise the frame­work by 2027, these devel­op­ments mark a sig­nif­i­cant move towards a coor­di­nat­ed, scal­able roll­out of eVTOL ser­vices. As the pow­ered lift cat­e­go­ry and eVTOL tech­nol­o­gy are both new, a ded­i­cat­ed train­ing process and cur­ricu­lum must be devel­oped to ensure pilots are thor­ough­ly pre­pared before take-off.

Tai­lor­ing these new train­ing pro­grammes to meet the spe­cif­ic require­ments set by the FAA and EASA means adopt­ing new meth­ods along­side the devel­op­ment of the air­craft them­selves.

Fur­ther­more, as urban oper­a­tions remain large­ly unchart­ed with­in the avi­a­tion indus­try, sce­nario-based train­ing is essen­tial. It allows pilots to gain expe­ri­ence with low-alti­tude flight paths and ver­ti­cal land­ing pads – both of which are cen­tral to eVTOL oper­a­tions.

Flight sim­u­la­tors could play a cru­cial role in prepa­ra­tion for eVTOLs

Sim­u­la­tor train­ing is a key com­po­nent in prepar­ing pilots for eVTOL oper­a­tions. It ensures they are equipped to han­dle the unique flight dynam­ics and oper­a­tional envi­ron­ments of these next-gen­er­a­tion air­craft.

As reg­u­la­tions evolve, there’s poten­tial for sim­u­la­tor man­u­fac­tur­ers to work close­ly with OEMs to devel­op tai­lored train­ing solu­tions, to not only meet com­pli­ance stan­dards but pre­pare pilots for this new era of flight.

High-fideli­ty devices such as full flight sim­u­la­tors (FFS) allow pilots to build famil­iar­i­ty with unique flight char­ac­ter­is­tics, cock­pit lay­outs and emer­gency pro­ce­dures in a safe, con­trolled envi­ron­ment. This ear­ly expo­sure accel­er­ates readi­ness once air­craft are cer­ti­fied and sup­ports reg­u­la­to­ry approval by demon­strat­ing that com­pre­hen­sive, sce­nario-based train­ing pro­grammes are in place from the out­set.

How VR can sup­port train­ing with­out lim­its

Inte­grat­ing vir­tu­al real­i­ty (VR) or extend­ed real­i­ty (XR) based sim­u­la­tors into the ear­ly stages of train­ing is a cost-effec­tive solu­tion.

These flight train­ing devices com­bine vir­tu­al aug­ment­ed real­i­ty (AR) with phys­i­cal air­craft con­trols and motion plat­forms to cre­ate a real­is­tic and immer­sive train­ing expe­ri­ence, and can allow pilots to train for a wide range of sce­nar­ios. VR/XR devices can be used
along­side FFS or inde­pen­dent­ly.

In 2024, AXIS Flight Sim­u­la­tion launched its own VR train­ing sys­tem – the Vir­tu­al Cock­pit Pro­ce­dure and Walka­round Train­er (VPT) – in part­ner­ship with Propair. The head­set uses state-of-the-art hand and eye track­ing capa­bil­i­ties to offer a high lev­el of immer­sion and when cou­pled with FFS train­ing, intro­duces new fea­tures such as bio­met­ric track­ing and cock­pit inter­ac­tion ana­lyt­ics.

VR plat­forms offer a valu­able com­ple­ment to tra­di­tion­al sim­u­la­tors, or can enable ear­li­er pilot engage­ment, as well as pro­vid­ing broad­er sce­nario expo­sure. On their own, VR train­ing sys­tems offer remote and flex­i­ble learn­ing envi­ron­ments at a low­er cost than FFS, mak­ing eVTOL train­ing more acces­si­ble.

As eVTOL air­craft intro­duce new flight dynam­ics and advanced human-machine inter­faces, immer­sive tech­nolo­gies such as VR and AI-dri­ven sys­tems are set to play a crit­i­cal role in shap­ing next-gen­er­a­tion pilot train­ing pro­grammes. These tools can increase real­ism and effi­cien­cy while sup­port­ing more scal­able, data-informed train­ing approach­es.

What comes next

With the emer­gence of entire­ly new air­craft such as eVTOLs, sim­u­la­tion train­ing pro­vides an effec­tive way for pilots to get ahead of the curve while these vehi­cles are still being devel­oped and cer­ti­fied.

Clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion and direc­tion from eVTOL man­u­fac­tur­ers to sim­u­la­tion com­pa­nies will be cru­cial to ensure train­ing tech­nolo­gies accu­rate­ly repli­cate air­craft behav­iour, while also enabling pilots to safe­ly expe­ri­ence crit­i­cal sce­nar­ios that can­not be prac­ticed in real air­craft.

The com­mer­cial roll­out of eVTOLs in alle­vi­at­ing urban con­ges­tion is expect­ed with­in the next five years, with com­pa­nies such as Archer Avi­a­tion already tar­get­ing real-world deploy­ment at the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Ange­les. As cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gress­es for both eVTOL air­craft and their asso­ci­at­ed train­ing sys­tems, cross-indus­try align­ment will be vital to bring­ing these visions to life.

By embrac­ing sim­u­la­tion through­out every stage of devel­op­ment – from ear­ly famil­iari­sa­tion to full oper­a­tional readi­ness – the indus­try can future-proof its approach to pilot train­ing.

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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