For our final TestBash Netherlands talk, @btripleseven took to the stage to talk to us about learning from our bugs, recognising patterns and how all of this provides value to your organisation.
If you’ve got questions for Alex about the talk, add them here 
Remember to 
questions that you like to show appreciation for others.
Alex will be answering the Q&As straight after his talk on Stage.
How long does it take and how big of a team would you need to develop a whole new flight simulator for a new type of aeroplane?
I guess this is the one of the elephants in the room … Would a simulator be effective in helping to find or at least hint to, the 737 Max problem we all know about?
How often do you train “issues/problems” during flights in the simulator?
We always train for issues in the simulator. That is what the simulators are designed for. Every 6 months we go for 4 hours of training, usually based on an accident that occured to another airline. I can tell that after those 4 hours you are exhausted: You take off then an engine blows out. Then hydraulic is failing on the other engine, weather is turning bad, fflight attendant is calling you to tell you that fire is starting to pick up into the lavatory, you try to extend the landing gear and it does not come out, and finally the other pilot is simulating a heart attack.
Simulators are so precise that they replicate the “real life”. If you have seen the movie with Tom Hanks playing the role of Captain Sullenberger, you saw that they used the simulators to check if he could have landed somewhere else. But it all depends of the fidelity of the simulation.
It can take several years, mainly because we follow the aircraft development. When the airplane is ready the simulators have to be ready in advance because we need to train pilots on it before. The other reason is also that aircraft manufacturers are using the simulators to try things on: New software for flight control, or a new “virtual model” of the hydraulic system. It takes 200-300 people: Each system (fuel, electric, engines, APU, brakes …) has to be implemented, then we need to build the cockpit (electronics, flight controls, paint, plumber for the air conditionning, carpet for the cockpit and and and…).
Thank you for this insight :). I really liked your presentation…