Abstract
In recent years there has been huge strives to increase the United States airline industry's safety record. As a result, they have implemented many programs including Advanced Qualification Program (AQP). The addition of AQP was to fulfill two goals: increase aviation safety through training and evaluation, and to be responsive to changes in aircraft technology, operations, and training methodologies. The Advanced Qualification Program is a voluntary program for Part 121 and 135 air carriers. Although, it is voluntary most air carriers participate in it. AQP is designed to be a proficiency based qualification, what the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) means by that is the training is directed primarily by the airline instead of the FAA. The airline chooses a number of Terminal Proficiency Objectives (TPO) each year, these topics become the focus of AQP for that year (Weitzel, 1992).
Keywords: Advanced Qualification Program, Federal Aviation Administration, Terminal Proficiency Objectives, Part 121, Part 135
Advanced Qualification Program (AQP) a Beneficial Addition to the Airline Industry
One of the biggest goals of the airline industry in general is the continued increase in safety, over the years there has been numerous advances in the training portion of the airline industry which have led to an increase in safety. One of the biggest of these changes was the addition of the Advanced Qualification Program (AQP). Advanced Qualification Program is a voluntary program that has been designed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). This program was designed with two main goals in mind these goals are to increase the level of safety in the aviation industry and to be responsive in changes in the aircraft technology, operations, and training. This program involves both Part 121 and Part 135 Air Carriers, although the FAA made it a voluntary program most air carriers have decided to participate due to the numerous benefits (Background, 2015).
There is an extensive history to the development and implementation of AQP, throughout the years it has become more beneficial and increasingly popular among air carriers. There are numerous benefits to the addition of AQP, these benefits not only meet the goals of AQP but extremely outweigh them. The constantly changes in technology and aircraft design can make training a complex task, however, through the use of AQP the training environment becomes somewhat more flexibility. This flexibility provides the air carrier with the ability to adequately train and keep up with these changes in a shorter amount of time then the traditional training environment allowed. The accurate use of AQP is heavily reliant on a joint effort between the air carrier and the FAA, this joint effort gives more than one perspective through most of the process which only further increases the levels of safety. In the future it is expected that we continue to see air carriers using the practice of AQP to complete pilot training, however, it is also expected to see some slight changes to this program which would only further increase the level of safety produced.
History
The design of the Advanced Qualification Program was headed by the Federal Aviation Administration; this process began in 1975. It was initiated due to changing hardware requirements which were needed for total simulation and the increasingly complex human factor problem the industry faced. Although this program was designed by the FAA, it was only as result of constant urges from the air carrier industry. By 1980 the FAA had addressed the issue with hardware, this was done through the use of the Advanced Simulation Program (Weitzel, 1992). The use of the Advanced Simulation Program was the start of the FAA’s redesign of the training programs.
Another huge strive toward AQP occurred in 1987, this was accomplished when T. Allan McArtor, the FAA Administrator at the time, met with representatives from major air carriers, air carrier associations, flight crew member associations, commuter air carriers, regional airline associations, and government organizations. The main focus of this meeting was flight crew member performance, upon completion each group was to provide McArtor with a report including recommendations for changes. Two of the biggest recommendations that were submitted, in reference to the impending AQP, were the requirement for part 135 commuters to comply with part 121 training requirements and a Special Federal Aviation Regulation (SFAR) to permit innovative training programs. In 1990 the FAA with help from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the joint task force, which was mentioned above, published SFAR 58. SFAR 58 was when AQP was established, this permitted a higher amount of regulatory flexibility in innovative pilot training programs. Due to the recommendation mentioned above the AQP training was not solely applicable to part 121 air carriers but also allowed for implementation in part 135 air carriers (Advisory, 2017). Although it was a long process leading up to the creation of AQP and ended up being a joint effort, the creation process lead to the design of a more beneficial training program, that would have been created solely by the FAA.
Overview of AQP
The basis of AQP training is Scenario-Based training and evaluation, this is viewed as extremely important because in aviation a majority of the accidents or incidents are a result of a chain of errors which occur over a flight. This was an issue that traditional training programs lacked to address due to their focus on maneuver-based training. In many cases this lead to a bunch of broken up segments, this would not create a situation conducive to chain of errors. The lack of chain of errors made it extremely difficult to train and evaluate these situations. This was changes extensively with the implementation of AQP training, instead of maneuver-based training air carriers now use scenario-based training for both the training portion and evaluation portion. This helps instructors better mimic actual flight conditions which have been known to cause air carrier accidents and incidents (Advisory, 2017).
The development of an Advanced Qualification Program (AQP) is a five phase process, phase one is application. This is when the air carrier sends a letter to their POI outlining their intentions of creating a AQP. The Principle Operations Inspector (POI), is a critical position in regards to the involvement of the FAA in development of the AQP curriculum. The POI ensures that the requirements are met and oversees the training to ensure a satisfactory level of safety and airmen competence. They will ensure that all documentation has met the FAA standards. The continue to oversee and coordinate to make sure any modifications are made and approvals are assured to maintain the level of satisfaction of the training. The letter presented to the POI contains a lot of information regarding the current training procedures and plans for the use of AQP. This letter also includes the Master AQP Transition Schedule (MATS), the MATS gives the air carrier and the FAA an outline for how exactly to get from a traditional training environment to an AQP structure. Finally, the FAA approves the application once this is done it is time for step two (Weitzel, 1992).
The second phase and one of the most important parts of AQP training is the development of the Curriculum, this is a complex task which involves a lot of involvement from both the air carrier and FAA. One of the biggest principles of AQP is that the content seen in the training and evaluating portions need to be relevant to the content of the operational job. The first step in the development of AQP curriculum is the creation of a task listing for each applicable duty position. This task listing should not only cover normal procedures but abnormal and emergency procedures as well. From the task listing a set of skills, knowledges, and abilities are created. Next a set of terminal and supporting objectives are created based off the task and subtask analysis created from the task listing. Once these objectives are completed they are submitted to the FAA, this is called the AQP qualification standards (Curriculum, 2016).
Stage three is implementation, this is done through a small group tryout. During this small group tryout all the lessons are performed using actual students and instructor/evaluators. In many cases this is a no-jeopardy event for the student, since the purpose is to test the effectiveness of the course. The air carrier will then begin to submit a monthly submission with information regarding the performance and proficiency of the training. This monthly submission will continue throughout the remained of the AQP training life. Finally based on the finding of the initial tryout the FAA and air carrier will make some changes to the course. These changes will then be approved by the FAA, these changes will be made one a year as well. This approval of changes is the completion of phase three (Advisory, 2017).
Phase four is the initial operations phase, this is when the air carrier completely implements the AQP training curriculum. This includes the implementation of indoctrination, qualification and continuing qualification training. This is required to take at least two years to compete, this is because it takes at least two years to complete the training cycle. However, in some cases it might be less than two years depending on exactly what the AQP curriculum consists of. Throughout phase four the air carrier will continue to audit the AQP curriculum. This audit is done by collecting data regarding performance and proficiency. Based on the finding revisions will be made, once the approval of the revisions has been completed phase four is complete (Weitzel, 1992).
Continuing operation is phase five, this phase is one of the simplest phases of AQP implementation. In this phase the air carrier simply continues to operation under the AQP training guidelines, unless the FAA decides for some reason to withdraw their approval or the air carrier decides to withdraw or make changes to the AQP training. The most important part of this phase is to ensure that the proper paperwork is completed in order to avoid losing the privilege from the FAA. The air carrier needs to continually monitor their AQP training to ensure that it is adequately performing up to the standards required and expected. The FAA requires the air carriers to submit an annual report, this outlines the lessons the air carrier learned throughout the year and any adjustments that need to be made to the curriculum. After this report is received there is an annual AQP review meeting between the air carrier and the FAA during this meeting they review the findings in the annual report (Advisory, 2017).
Features and Requirements of AQP. Although AQP was designed to have less involvement with the FAA, it is still a highly regulated and overseen process. This ensures that the maximum benefit is gained through the training process, resulting in the safest aircraft operation. Although there is numerous benefit to AQP training the FAA has made it a voluntary program, this allows an air carrier to choose which training environment they feel best suits their operations. Although it is voluntary majority of the United States carriers have seen the value in this training program and have chosen to participate in it (Background, 2015).
The design of AQP was met to be an innovative training process this means it was a proficiency based qualification training. Instead of driving the training by the traditional event driven compliance requirements the FAA required, AQP outlines terminal proficiency objectives (TPOs) and performance standards. Instead of the traditional requirements which are chosen by the FAA, the TPOs are decided on by the individual air carrier. These are then approved by the FAA, and become a regulatory requirement for that air carrier. Although these are regulatory requirements the air carrier has the ability to make additions, changes, or remove certain TPOs. This flexibility allows the air carrier to continue to maintain the level of proficiency intended from the AQP process (Frequency, 2015).
Although the process is somewhat hands off in regards on the FAA, they have outlined a few requirements. The most important requirement is that not only does the training need to be air carrier specific, but aircraft specific as well. The AQP training needs to consist of indoctrination, qualification, and continuing qualification curriculums. Training and evaluation must be conducted in a situation that simulates a full cockpit crew environment, this means that the training must consist of a captain and first officer at all times. There must be a line operation evaluation (LOE) performed, this is a full flight scenario which allows the instructor to target crew resource management (CRM) skills. The training and evaluating must be performed in advanced flight training equipment. For most air carriers this consists with the use of a full flight simulator (Background, 2015).
Benefits. Although AQP is a voluntary program, it was created to provide air carriers numerous benefits in regards to flight training and proficiency checks. It was also designed with the importance of increasing the safety levels of the air carrier aviation inudstry through the use of training. AQP was designed with three main benefits in mind, the first of these being crew performance. The FAA and NTSB have published that a majority of the air carrier accident which occur are caused by human error. Although this is known to be the biggest casue of accidents it is not addressed in the FAA’s traditional training and evaluation process. With the use of AQP air carriers are able to address not only crew performance but individual performance as well. Not only are these topics address, but a majority of the focus is placed on them (Advisory, 2017).
The second benefit is crew resource management (CRM), a huge focus was put on CRM in the 1980’s as well due to a number of air carrier accidents that were primarily caused by a breakdown in crew communications. Since both the topics of CRM and AQP were addressed around the same time it is not surprising that such a huge focus was placed on CRM throughout the AQP training and evaluating process. A majority of the accidents seen from air carrier operations are caused due to crew errors regarding the topics of judgement, crew coordination, and crew communication. As opposed to the FAA traditional training and evaluating process, AQP training and evaluating not only focuses on flying skills and system knowledge, but a huge focus is also placed on CRM skills as well. This focus on CRM skills is placed throughout the entire process allowing the air carrier to properly train and evaluate these skills amoungst their crewmembers (Advisory, 2017).
Third, scenario-based training and evaluation, when looking at the NTSB accident findings it is clear that a majority of accidents are not caused by one event alone. They are mostly cause by a number of mistakes occuring leading to an unfavorbale outcome. Again, this is something that the FAA’s traditional training and evaluating program lacked to address. However, with the addition of AQP training and evalutaion air carriers are now able to address this issue. The scenario-based training and evaluation allows the air carriers and instructors to create a situation more similar to actual flight conditions. An actual flight condiditon simulation will allow the instructor to train and evaluate situation that are more likely to cause a fatal air carrier accident verses artificially segment simulation events (Advisory, 2017).
The AQP training environment also comes with some additional benefits that are possible outside of the three main benefits mentioned above. The FAA’s traditional maneuver-based training and evaluation programs are extremely rigid, they do not allow formuch flexability from the air carrier. It was found that increasing the flexability could be extremly benficial to the training and evaluating process. This flexability was included with the addition of AQP, air carriers are given more freedom allowing them to modify the training curriculm throughout the year. The freedom created with AQP ensures that the training and evaluation provided by the air carrier focuses on the specific hot spots. Overall, AQP is known to be an innovative training and evaluation process. With the added flexability created through the addition of AQP are allowed to stray further from the traditional training and evaluating process, this creating a more effective training process. Instead of the traditional curriculm which inculded a set amount of hours spent on a certain topic AQP allows the air carrier to train the crewmember to proficiency. This allows the training to be ultered for each crewmembers individual needs. The FAA has adressed that there are multiple learning styles, therefore what works with one crewmember may not work with all other crewmembers. The flexability seem with AQP allows them to better cater to all learning styles (Advisory, 2017).
Future. AQP training has numerous benefits to the air carrier aviation industry, all these benefits work together to create a safer industry. Safety was one of the FAA’s number one goals when creating and implementing training and evaulation through AQP. However, the aviaiton industry is constantly changing especially in regards to air carrier operations (Applied, 2015). Due to these continuous changes a training curriculm that works currently may not work in the near future. Although AQP is currently a exceptional option for training and evaluating, if it is not kept up to date with the current needs it will be quickly outdates as was the traditional training environment.
There is continuous research being conducted on human factors and CRM skills, these are two factors that are heavily addressed in AQP. As this research is conducted a greater understanding of these topics is gained, with a greater understanding comes the ability to better train these skills. Currently with the flexability offered from AQP air carriers and the FAA are capable of addressing these changes. However, it is their responsibility to keep up with these changes and understand exactly how to encorporate the new findings into their curriculum. If the air carrier is cabable of keeping up with these changes it will greatly aid in avoiding the threat of AQP becoming out of date.
Another huge factor that needs to be considered in the future is the constantly changing technology in air carrier aircraft. As the technology changes the needs for training and evaluation changes as well. As technology continues to increase the skills and procedures required to safely operate the aircraft changes. These changes must be address in the training department in order to maintain the highest level of safety. Again, the flexaility provided by AQP training allows these changes to be made. However, it is important for the air carrier and FAA to keep up with the advances and to understand exactly how to adequatly train these changes.
Conclusion. In the late 1900’s it was clear that there was an issue regarding air carrier operation, the level of safety despiratly needed to be increased. Due to these shortcomings there was a number of changes made to the air carrier industry most of them surrounding the training environment. The two biggest changes were the addition of CRM and AQP training, these both addressed the issues regarding human error and crew communication breakdown. The next step was to implement the new training process, to do this a five step process was designed. This process outlines the steps an air carrier needs to take in order to become approved for AQP trainign and evaluating.
There are a number of features and requirements that are associated with the use of AQP training and evaluating. The biggest of these are that this training process is a volintary program, it is not required, the training performed must be aircraft specific. Another important part is that communication needs to be coninuous with the air carriers POI and yearly meeting must be held. Although, when comparing this to the traditional training and evaluating process it is fairly hands off in regards to the FAA. There are numerous benefits created from the use of AQP, the biggest of this being the flexability to alter things. All the benefits work together to create a much safer air carrier operation. One of the biggest factors to consider is the future, it is important for the FAA and air carrier to keep up with the increase in research and the changes in technology. As long as these topic are continued to be valued AQP should not become an inadequate training program.
References
Advisory circular. (2017). U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Aviation Administration. 120-54A
Applied research in AQP. (2015). Federal Aviation Administration. Retrieved from https://www.faa.gov/training_testing/training/aqp/more/applied_research/
Background. (2015). Federal Aviation Administration. Retrieved from https://www.faa.gov/training_testing/training/aqp/more/background/
Curriculum development. (2015). Federal Aviation Administration. Retrieved from
https://www.faa.gov/training_testing/training/aqp/more/curriculum/
Frequency of training and evaluation. (2015). Federal Aviation Administration. Retrieved from https://www.faa.gov/training_testing/training/aqp/more/frequency/
Weitzel, T. R., Lehrer, H. R. (1992). A turning point in aviation training: The AQP mandates crew resource management and line operational simulations. Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research 2:3