Following certification of its A350 XWB widebody twin this summer, Airbus has recently gained the approval from the FAA and EASA for its pilot training program and implemented ambitious plans to move training closer to the customer under the “Training by Airbus” brand revealed in 2013.

On November 26 AIN joined Airbus in Toulouse, France, to experience first hand the new program, and to learn about the new philosophy—built around the Airbus Competence Training concept—and new devices and software that support it.

The philosophy allows the pilots to experience what they learn as they learn it, while allowing an element of self-discovery, termed “learning by discovery.” The three-tier full type-rating course combines the new Airbus Cockpit Experience (ACE) laptop-based familiarization with a new Airbus Pilot Transition (APT+) CAE Flight Training Device (FAA Level 6/EASA Level 2 FTD), and the new CAE full-motion flight simulator (FFS). Together, ACE and APT+ work hand-in-hand as the Systems Knowledge Module.

 “With the A350 we wanted to go a step further…to have more efficient learning for pilots, plus to go back to more traditional training—how to fly the aircraft,” said Fabrice Hamel, Airbus v-p training services. Eventually the new philosophies and equipment will migrate to other Airbus types as well, he added.

Qatar Airways has already started to use the new material as launch customer, and will ultimately perform its pilot training for the A350 at its own training center, as will other large airlines that have ordered the type. However Airbus plans three new regional centers of its own; construction on Airbus Asia has started in Singapore, and plans call for operations to start in the first quarter of 2015. In New Delhi, an A320 satellite training center will open next year, followed by the Airbus Mexico Training Center, scheduled to start operations in the first half of 2016.

 “We have more under preparation—we want to become a global provider of training services,” said Hamel. The company started offering “turnkey” training packages a year ago and Airbus expects to announce many new customers, said Hamel. Currently it operates centers in Toulouse, Miami, Hamburg, Beijing and Bangalore.

Airbus also gave more details of how it plans to transition A350 training from one model to another, using so-called Cross-Crew Qualification. A major achievement involved a Common Type Rating (CTR) with the Airbus A330. More than 80 percent of A350 customers already operate A330s.

While the complete A350 type-rating course takes 23 days, from the A320 or A340 the course runs 11 days and from the A380 only five days. “Once you’ve been through the brainwash of flying an Airbus and understood the philosophy, you can save a lot of training days,” said Wolfgang Absmeier, one of Airbus’s dozen or so experimental test pilots.

The transition to the A350 from the A330 takes eight days of differences training, requiring no line flying under supervision and no initial line check, although EASA requires two sectors of ‘familiarization’ flying, said Christian Norden, director A350 flight operations and training support. He added that the common type rating allows for the use of EASA's FTD Level 2 and no need at all for the FFS.