Air-to-Air Refueling Training: Evaluation And Options

The air to air refueling needs a lot of experience and is a tough job for a regular pilot. The training session that is conducted needs more expertise and practical knowledge. Designing the training session and delivering those training can be very difficult. Inclusion of regular civilian pilots increases the risks of failure, as they are not very experienced.

Weakness that could affect the quality of the training are:

Structural weaknesses that may negatively affect the training process:

Evaluation of the three proposed training options.

Weaknesses in Air-to-Air Refueling Training

Flygas training model has six different levels analyzing the task, writing the objectives, designing the training sessions, writing the end of course tests, delivering the training sessions that were planned and finally conducting the end of course tests.

The training lifecycle that is planned is not flexible and missing practical training options. The air to air refueling needs a lot of experience and is a tough job for a regular pilot. The training session that is conducted needs more expertise and practical knowledge. Designing the training session and delivering those training can be very difficult. Inclusion of regular civilian pilots increases the risks of failure, as they are not very experienced. Apart from this the training process that is undertaken is very expensive and time consuming, which is very impractical to follow.

The training process that flygas is following consists of six different steps and they are analyzing the task, writing down the objectives of flygas, designing the training season, writing the end of course test, delivering the training seasons that was designed and conducting the course test. The flygas training lifecycle is missing practical training processes. The process may not provide good knowledge about the air to air fueling process. The process sequence is not correct. Writing the objective of the task will be the first step then it will help them in better analysis of the task. The process should include a step of finding and analyzing each of the civilian pilots so that their weaknesses can be identified. Finding their weakness can increase the level of effectiveness of air-to-air refueling. Finding the weakness will help in providing better training sessions. This will ultimately reduce the risk of failure of air-to-air fueling.

FlyGas is working on developing a new training process for the crews who have been taking poor decisions during the refueling problems that have resulted into unnecessary diversions. FlyGas’straining rooms are available in its headquarter in UK. The simulator training happens in France and FlyTrain operates it. Three types of training options have been identified.

Option 1 consists of two options. The first phase of training option part 1 is about teaching the principle of AAR planning and re-planning to the trainees. This will take approximately 4 days of session in the classroom located at FlyGas headquarters in United Kingdom. This planning and re-planning teaching is given to the individuals and then the process shifts to phase 2. In phase 2, they conduct a simulator exercise, which lasts for 4 hours. The trainees are categorized into fixed crews in the second phase. Each of the exercises is preceded by a particular training exercise that they do as a crew. After that, they run this plan in the simulator. They adjust the plan according to planning and re-planning strategy. The difficulty and the complexity of the tasks increases and provides opportunity to aging practice the principles that were taught in the phase 1. This option provides a very detailed training season and the trainee will come to know about the process very easily. However, option 1 is very complex and time consuming.

Evaluation of Proposed Training Options

Option 2 does not consist of any separate phases. The training of the option 2 will takes place in France. This process also based on the same six-simulator exercise like the option 1. However, option 2 is slightly different, the main two differences are the planning, and re-planning strategies will be taught incrementally. In these, the principles will be taught first. The trainees in a group exercise will carry out the planning and re-planning strategy. The second difference is that the first five exercises will be carried out in the flight-training device the final exercise will be carried out in the flight simulator. The option 2 is more practical and this less time consuming. However, the planning and re-planning strategies are not very effective and the trainee might face problem.

Option 3 is not very different from option 2. In this all the exercises are conducted in the flight training device. This will consume the least amount of time and will give a practical experience to the employee.

All the three options are very informative, will provide a great experience, and will help the trainee in knowing the operations of air-to-air refueling. The training processes are conducted in flight training device or flight simulator. The first option is the most informative and at the same time, the first option is very time consuming. The first option has two phases and the planning re-planning technique takes about 4 days of classroom session. The second option is less time consuming and in these first five steps are conducted in the the flight-training device the final exercise will be carried out in the flight simulator. The third option is totally conducted in the flight training option.

Kirkpatrick’s training evaluation model used in an organization by the trainers to understand the effectiveness of the training that were given to the employees in a strategic way (Abdulghani et al., 2014). Donald Kirkpatrick developed four level training evaluation processes in the year 1959. The training model was published in US training and development journal (Grohmann and Kauffeld, 2013). The model was updated in 1975 and after that, again it was updated in the year 1994.

The model consists of four levels:

This level measures the reaction of the trainee to the training that is given to them. The organization would want to make the feeling that the training was valuable and they should have a positive reaction towards the instructor. This level is necessary because it helps to understand the effectiveness of the training towards the audience. This will also helps to increase the effectiveness of the training in future and if any problems arises it will help to solve those problems.

Kirkpatrick's Training Evaluation Model

This step measures about what the trainees have learnt from the training, how much knowledge they have gained from the training. Knowing about what the trainees are learning and have learnt will help to understand the fault in their training. This will increase their training quality in future (Goetsch and Davis 2014).

This step measures how the training changed the behaviour of the trainee (Roberts et al. 2014). The trainers should understand that the changes in behaviour could only occur when the conditions are favorable. However, if the behaviour of the trainees does not change it does not mean that the trainees have not learnt anything.

This level analyzes the results of the training. Results mean the outcomes that the organization has determined for the growth of the business.

FlyGas has three different options for giving training. Option 2 is the most effective, practical and less time consuming. FlyGas can evaluate Kirkpatrick’s four level evaluation models to increase the effectiveness of the practice. By using the model FlyGas can learn what is going wrong with their strategy and can check the effectiveness of the trainees at each level. The model will also help them to make changes in the training process that will help FlyGas to keep the failure in control.

FlyGas have to check the reaction of the trainees to understand how they have understood the training and liked the training process. The will also have to measure the effectiveness of all the steps of the training process. The trainee should understand how the behaviour of the individuals changed after the training process concluded and at last, they should note down the results or outcomes of the training process. The result should be favorable and should match the organizations objective. This training process will help the employees in making right decisions during and fly gas-refueling failure and will provide better training in the future. The four steps will help to understand the areas where changes are requires and help them to provide better and effective training.

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