VR at KLM: making savings, but not on the wow factor
‘I recently heard a funny story about a pilot who had a slight disagreement with his wife. She wanted them to watch a Netflix series together. But he kept her waiting because he “just wanted to finish a module in the VR-cockpit training”. It was the training that our pilots can do at home with VR goggles. He was so caught up in it that she ended up binge watching alone the rest of the evening!’
Daisy Navarrete Schuiten is product owner VR at the XR Centre of Excellence within IT at Air France-KLM. She explains what VR actually does to KLM colleagues during their training. The anecdote of the pilot totally in the grip of the virtual reality cockpit training is a typical example of the effect that VR brings about. ‘VR allows us to offer an experience that wouldn't be possible in real life. Think about fire safety training for our cabin crew. At present, our crew practice the fire extinguishing procedure in a mock-up steel airplane kitchen. This is valuable experience, because you actually feel the heat from the fire. The fire safety in VR has enabled us to add an extra dimension: now you can hear and see the fire in the cabin of an airplane.’
VR at KLM: making savings, but not on the wow factor
‘I recently heard a funny story about a pilot who had a slight disagreement with his wife. She wanted them to watch a Netflix series together. But he kept her waiting because he “just wanted to finish a module in the VR-cockpit training”. It was the training that our pilots can do at home with VR goggles. He was so caught up in it that she ended up binge watching alone the rest of the evening!’
Daisy Navarrete Schuiten is product owner VR at the XR Centre of Excellence within IT at Air France-KLM. She explains what VR actually does to KLM colleagues during their training. The anecdote of the pilot totally in the grip of the virtual reality cockpit training is a typical example of the effect that VR brings about. ‘VR allows us to offer an experience that wouldn't be possible in real life. Think about fire safety training for our cabin crew. At present, our crew practice the fire extinguishing procedure in a mock-up steel airplane kitchen. This is valuable experience, because you actually feel the heat from the fire. The fire safety in VR has enabled us to add an extra dimension: now you can hear and see the fire in the cabin of an airplane.’
Adrenaline rush during the lesson
‘You see it time and time again: during the training cursists start giggling as soon as they put their goggles on. But when the training starts in earnest the giggle soon changes to a reaction to stress and then to full-on focus. We work with the cursists in groups of two and they have to complete the fire extinguishing protocol together. At that moment they experience exactly what you have to do in a real life situation: who does what and in which order? When the trainer also programmes one of the computer animated passengers to “fly into a panic”, this creates a learning situation that we wouldn't achieve so quickly with a different type of training.’
Higher learning return due to VR
Daisy sees the added value of VR as the Holy Grail. As an educator in various roles within KLM she has always looked for the greatest learning return from a training intervention. ‘The development of VR and the required hardware are is very expensive. We continually challenge ourselves to create something that adds value. This could be the wow factor from a cursist, but also the financial picture, of course. Let's look at the cockpit training that I mentioned earlier. At KLM, our pilots are trained using flight simulators. But do you have to use the simulator for every operation? Thanks to VR they can practice the less complicated actions, such as starting the engines, from the comfort of their sofa at home. This frees us time in the simulator to practice very specific situations. Eventually, this will result in less time being spent in the more expensive sim.’
Daisy and her team operate as a mini-company within KLM and aim to make VR a logical choice in training applications. There is also interest from the wider market for the applications they make. The Deltion College now uses the fire safety and jetway bridge training developed by KLM. The latter enables students to practice the work of the bridge operators, who place the passenger bridges against the aircraft at the airport. ‘For Deltion, we “brushed up” an existing proof of concept (PoC). We always start with such a PoC and improve it, together with the user, during a number of try-outs.’
Higher learning return due to VR
Daisy sees the added value of VR as the Holy Grail. As an educator in various roles within KLM she has always looked for the greatest learning return from a training intervention. ‘The development of VR and the required hardware are is very expensive. We continually challenge ourselves to create something that adds value. This could be the wow factor from a cursist, but also the financial picture, of course. Let's look at the cockpit training that I mentioned earlier. At KLM, our pilots are trained using flight simulators. But do you have to use the simulator for every operation? Thanks to VR they can practice the less complicated actions, such as starting the engines, from the comfort of their sofa at home. This frees us time in the simulator to practice very specific situations. Eventually, this will result in less time being spent in the more expensive sim.’
Daisy and her team operate as a mini-company within KLM and aim to make VR a logical choice in training applications. There is also interest from the wider market for the applications they make. The Deltion College now uses the fire safety and jetway bridge training developed by KLM. The latter enables students to practice the work of the bridge operators, who place the passenger bridges against the aircraft at the airport. ‘For Deltion, we “brushed up” an existing proof of concept (PoC). We always start with such a PoC and improve it, together with the user, during a number of try-outs.’
Virtual firework display
‘We're presently working with Safety and Security Training to set up an exercise for 'post evacuation on water'. In this situation, the crew has to know exactly how to inflate a float. As soon as a rescue heli nears they have to fire a flare. That's a kind of luminous firework. Using VR this is easy and relatively affordable to practice. Our challenge is to make the training realistic. And that requires creativity. We recently experimented by attaching Arduino sensors to a dummy door so that the opening and closing of the airplane door would feel as real as possible.’
‘The wow effect we created here was fantastic. The cursists’ reactions to VR never get boring. One of the first VR training sessions that we made was a startle and surprise training for pilots. Our aim here was to provoke a startle reaction, which then demanded direct action from the pilot. We later received a number of emails from pilots telling us that they had since been involved in similar situations on board and had been better prepared. Thanks to our VR training they knew what to do. And this is what we do it all for, isn't it!’
The team currently has a number of proofs of concept on the shelf which may potentially be profitable. Both financially and in terms of the wow factor. For Daisy and her colleagues, VR has long ceased to be a gimmick because its further development is dependent upon its added value. Despite the difficult period in which KLM finds itself, it’s 'full steam ahead’ for her and her colleagues. ‘If it were up to me, VR would soon be the most normal thing in the world within every division at KLM.’ Good luck finding time for Netflix then.
Virtual firework display
‘We're presently working with Safety and Security Training to set up an exercise for 'post evacuation on water'. In this situation, the crew has to know exactly how to inflate a float. As soon as a rescue heli nears they have to fire a flare. That's a kind of luminous firework. Using VR this is easy and relatively affordable to practice. Our challenge is to make the training realistic. And that requires creativity. We recently experimented by attaching Arduino sensors to a dummy door so that the opening and closing of the airplane door would feel as real as possible.’
‘The wow effect we created here was fantastic. The cursists’ reactions to VR never get boring. One of the first VR training sessions that we made was a startle and surprise training for pilots. Our aim here was to provoke a startle reaction, which then demanded direct action from the pilot. We later received a number of emails from pilots telling us that they had since been involved in similar situations on board and had been better prepared. Thanks to our VR training they knew what to do. And this is what we do it all for, isn't it!’
The team currently has a number of proofs of concept on the shelf which may potentially be profitable. Both financially and in terms of the wow factor. For Daisy and her colleagues, VR has long ceased to be a gimmick because its further development is dependent upon its added value. Despite the difficult period in which KLM finds itself, it’s 'full steam ahead’ for her and her colleagues. ‘If it were up to me, VR would soon be the most normal thing in the world within every division at KLM.’ Good luck finding time for Netflix then.