The oldest and most mature example of simulator training is in aviation. A pilot learns to fly without risking the real aircraft — the same argument that underpins industrial training today.
What they did
In the F-35 programme the Full Mission Simulator is not a supplement to training but a core part of it. The simulator runs the cockpit and the mission systems faithfully, and a trainee completes a substantial share of mission scenarios there before flying for real.
The measured result
- Trainees can fly 45–55% of initial training flights in the simulator
- More than 1,300 pilots have trained on it to date
- There are 21 F-35 training sites worldwide
A claim of “$44,000 saved per flight hour” circulates for this case; it appears in no Lockheed Martin publication, so it is not here.
What it means for a manufacturer
What aviation learned over fifty years is simple: any skill that needs repetition and is expensive to get wrong is learned in a simulator first. The equation is the same for an excavator operator or a maintenance technician — the only difference is that it no longer takes a fighter jet budget.