Does Technology Make Us Smarter?

An article in The New York Times today outlines how the FAA is relying on simulators to train the next generation of air traffic controllers. The agency needs to train thousands of controllers before nearly two-thirds of the 15,000 air traffic controllers leave work by 2017 because they will have reached the mandatory retirement age of 56. The young controllers are placed in a realistic simulation of an airport tower. According to the article:

Aircraft first appear as tiny dots against blue sky, clouds or stars. On the ground, drivers of maintenance trucks ask permission to cross a runway so they can fix a lighted sign. A click of the instructor's mouse can shift the time of day, and change the weather -- from rain to hail or cloudy to clear. To make the simulations as unpredictable as in the real world, some pilots ignore instructions.

FAA officials hope that that "the simulators will cut training time 20 percent to 60 percent," according to the article. With average cost for training an air traffic controller at $74,000, that could save tens of millions of dollars - maybe hundreds of million - over the next ten years. That certainly is a good return on investment, but what about improved or at least comparable performance of the air traffic controllers? Hopefully, there is some metric that shows simulator training is at least as good as the traditional training controllers received. It would be tragic if it turned out to be less effective.