In the beginning was the Link Trainer! It was from the Link Trainer that the simulator as we know it today descended. When the simulator was first introduced into airline service it was to some degree treated as a novelty. Instructors on the simulators fell into two categories—they were either in the minority, Link Trainer instructors, but in the main the fleet instructors from the aircraft types. They were ex-service RAF, Navy and CFS trained and they adapated themselves to the new form of aptitude tests. It is perhaps interesting that we look back over a quarter of a century to the time that BOAC, as it was, acquired its first simulator.

In the following paper I shall discuss briefly the past history of aerospace cost prediction for budgetary purposes within government, the position which it has now reached and some of the problems which lie ahead. Some of the paper will be philosophical, but I make no apology for that. It is all too easy to become involved in detailed discussions of statistics, operating procedures and the like and to lose sight of the objectives of cost predictions and the major uncertainties surrounding all attempts to forecast the future.

As the title of my presentation indicates, I believe that we have progressed beyond the question of whether formal flight simulator instructor training is necessary, and must instead consider how to keep the training a simulator instructor must undergo from attaining unmanageable proportions. Because my parent organisation is the Tactical Air Command of the United States Air Force, and my primary experience has been as F-16 Simulator Program Manager, my remarks will be from the point of view of a tactical fighter simulator instructor, and will reflect his particular requirement for formal training in simulator.

I propose to outline the Royal Air Force approach to flight simulator instructor training and indicate our intention regarding the pattern of pre-employment training of future simulator instructors. As you know the instructor task had its origins in the Link Trainer and perhaps there grew into being a ‘Link’ mentality which saw the ‘Box’ as suitable employment for aged or unfit aircrew who, through no fault of their own, had to be put out to pasture. This approach was accepted largely because simulators were regarded mainly as procedural trainers requiring only routine supervision and little originality in training methods.