The Technician Who Showed You How... Why Mentorship Is the Most Underrated Tool in Simulator Maintenance
Updated: Sep 7
Behind every confident, capable simulator technician or engineer is someone who once said, "Come with me, I'll show you how it's done."
When we talk about sustaining flight simulation programmes in an era of ageing hardware and shrinking OEM support, the conversation almost always turns to spare parts,
obsolescence management and systems integration. These are real challenges and they deserve serious attention.
But there is another kind of support structure that is just as critical and far more human. Mentorship.
As simulator systems grow older and more complex, the survival of the industry will depend not only on what experienced technicians know, but on whether they pass it on.
Seasoned technicians and engineers carry years of accumulated insight, fault-tracing intuition and hard-won experience that no manual or training course can fully replicate. When they share that with the people coming up behind them, they're doing far more than just teaching skills. They're ensuring continuity, building confidence and creating the kind of organisational resilience that outlasts any single individual.
Why Simulator Maintenance Is Different
Unlike aircraft maintenance, where systems and documentation are standardised and tightly controlled, flight simulator systems, particularly older full flight models, often reflect decades of custom modifications, hardware substitutions and (unfortunately sometimes) undocumented adjustments accumulated over years of operation.
A seasoned technician or engineer knows the quirks. Which relay clicks a half-second late. Which interface drops sync during a power cycle under certain conditions. How to finesse a system through a notoriously difficult QTG validation test that the documentation doesn't quite prepare you for.
That knowledge doesn't live in a manual. It lives in people's heads.
A mentor acts as the bridge between what the documentation says and what the simulator actually does. Without that bridge, newer engineers learn through trial and error, which is slower, more expensive, and in a field where simulator availability directly affects pilot training outcomes (and business revenue), potentially consequential.
There is also a demographic reality the industry cannot ignore. A significant portion of the simulator maintenance workforce is approaching retirement. Many of these technicians and engineers began their careers in the 1980s and 1990s, when Level D simulators were establishing themselves as the backbone of commercial pilot training. Every one who leaves without passing on what they know takes with them knowledge that was never written down and cannot easily be recovered.
Mentorship is about so much more than individual development. It's about preserving operational continuity at a company, and even an industry level.
What Mentors Actually Do
There is a common misconception that mentorship in a technical field is primarily about skills transfer. Show someone how to replace a component, walk them through a calibration sequence, demonstrate the fault isolation process.
These things matter, sure. But they are not the most important thing a mentor provides.
The more valuable transfer is something harder to articulate. It's the ability to walk into a room, look at a system behaving unusually, and just know, from accumulated experience, where to start looking. It is the calm that comes from having seen a similar fault before, even if the exact symptoms are slightly different this time. It is knowing when a problem is what it appears to be and when it is pointing to something else entirely.
No search engine or knowledge base teaches this kind of thing. No training course shortens the path to it as effectively as working alongside someone who already has it.
A Personal Reflection
In my early years working on full flight simulators, I was fortunate to be guided by several people who did far more than teach me how to troubleshoot, calibrate and test. They taught me how to think critically, act responsibly and take genuine pride in the purpose behind the work.
One mentor in particular stands out. He had a way of letting me take the first attempt at a problem, watching patiently as I worked through it, before quietly offering a better approach or gently correcting a misstep. He never made me feel inadequate for not knowing something. He made me feel capable of learning anything, provided I stayed curious and committed.
More than the technical knowledge, he set the expectation for professional standards. He made it clear that our job was not simply to keep the simulator operational. It was to ensure pilots received the most accurate, reliable and safe training environment possible, and that in doing so, we were part of a broader safety chain that extended well beyond the simulator bay.
That shaped my skills, sure. But more imporatntly (in my opinion) iIt shaped my mindset. And it is the reason I think about mentorship as a professional obligation rather than an optional extra.
What Good Mentorship Looks Like in Practice
Mentorship in the simulator maintenance environment does not require a formal programme or a significant budget. It simply requires purposeful intent and protected time.
Some of the most effective approaches are straightforward. Letting a junior technician shadow a senior during fault diagnosis, then reversing the roles when they are ready or when the situation is less time critical. Taking five minutes after resolving an issue to walk through the reasoning, not just the result. Getting the junior technician to prepare a presentation on a specific fault (chosen by a more senior engineer) and how they would work through the issue. Ensuring rotation across simulator subsystems, so newer technicians develop exposure to motion, visuals, host systems, instructor stations and interfaces rather than becoming specialists in isolation.
Introducing deliberate fault scenarios on non-operational training devices is particularly effective. A technician who has worked through a fault in a controlled environment with guidance alongside them is significantly better prepared for the same fault in a live operational context than one who encounters it for the first time under pressure.
The benefits extend in both directions. Teaching helps experienced technicians reinforce and articulate their own understanding. It keeps them stay engaged. And it builds the kind of team culture, grounded in trust and mutual accountability, that makes an organisation genuinely resilient rather than dependent on key individuals.
For operators, a team culture that values mentorship produces measurable outcomes. Simulator availability improves when technicians are better prepared. Fault resolution times shorten. Succession risk decreases as knowledge is distributed rather than concentrated. And audit preparedness strengthens when procedures and practices are understood rather than just followed.
The Stories That Don't Get Told Enough
Some of the most capable technicians I have encountered had no simulator background when they started. They came from automotive trades, IT roles, electronics & avionics workshops, and of course flight-line maintenance. What distinguished them was not what they knew on their first day but the presence of someone who believed in their potential and gave them room to develop.
A junior technician I once worked alongside had never been near a 6DOF motion platform before his first shift. Six months later, he was calmly leading fault isolation during a high-stakes QTG period. That did not happen by accident. Someone had taken the time to guide him from the beginning, and it showed.
These stories are not rare in the simulator world. They are simply underrepresented. The future of simulator support is being built one technician at a time, often in quiet moments of shared knowledge and patience that never appear on a maintenance log.
Be the Technician You Once Needed
If you are an experienced simulator technician, think back to your early days. Who helped you feel confident in a system you did not yet understand? Who gave you your first real opportunity to work through a problem independently? Who explained something in a way that finally made it click?
Now ask yourself: who are you doing that for today?
Mentorship is not tradition for its own sake. It is how critical knowledge stays alive when systems age and external support becomes harder to find. It is how we build the next generation of technicians and engineers who do not just survive in this field but genuinely thrive in it.
The impact of that investment tends to outlast any part you replace, any system you recalibrate, or any QTG you help pass.
FAQs
How do you become a flight simulator technician?
There are numerous paths you can take to become a flight simulator technician, mainly because there is no nationally or internationally recognized qualification specific to the maintenance and support of Flight Simulation Training Devices (FSTDs). With that being said, as it is a highly technical role you will need a level of formal education; completing high school / secondary school (with mathematics being of particular importance) is an essential part before undertaking technical training towards becoming a simulator technician or engineer.
Here are a few different pathways to become an FSTD Engineer or Technician:
The aircraft maintenance route: Most countries have a nationally recognized training program to get qualified to undertake aircraft maintenance. It is usually part of a trade college, technical college, polytechnic or apprenticeship program. If you're lucky you'll be able to find a simulator operator that will take you on as an apprentice to learn the ropes of simulator maintenance engineering whilst working through your log of experience to finish with a qualification as an aircraft maintenance engineer (AME). Otherwise, you can work for an aircraft operator (airline or otherwise) and end up with the same qualification, and then look to transfer into a FSTD technician or engineer role with a simulator operator. Not all candidates make this switch quickly, easily or well - so if this is something you're wanting to do, it's wise to get some additional training to become familiar with simulator operations before attempting making the transition between roles.
The university / polytechnic / technical college route: As there is no universally accepted qualification for the support of FSTDs (the qualification is managed at a device level, not at a staff skill and experience level like you'd see on the flight-line with real aircraft maintenance) it is not uncommon for people who have undertaken some kind of technician training to take on a role as a junior or trainee flight simulator support engineer or technician straight after they're finished their studies. The kinds of training courses that are commonly seen entering the simulator maintenance and engineering world are electrical and electronic engineering, mechatronics, computer science, computer networking and other similar fields of study.
The from a different technical trade route: It is not uncommon to see people transition from other kinds of technical trades into flight simulator maintenance support. Some common roles that are seen making the move to simulator support include telecommunications technicians, electronics technicians (workshop or otherwise), avionics technicians (workshop or flightline), HVAC technicians, field service technicians, audio visual engineers, IT and computer networking engineers, and other similar roles that require technical troubleshooting and problem solving skillsets surrounding technology.
There are, of course, other pathways to get started in a career in flight simulator support, however these are the most common ones we have seen in industry over the last few decades.
How much do flight simulator technicians make?
Flight simulator technicians and flight simulator engineers (the titles are often used interchangeably, but sometimes there are differences between the roles) can get paid based anywhere from (USD) $44,000 to $150,000 based on a number of factors.
These factors include:
Number of years of experience supporting FSTDs - as with most technical roles, the more years of suitable experience you have the higher salary you can demand from your employer. A junior technician with less than five (5) years experience will be looking at the lower end of the scale; with highly experienced technical experts having 15-20+ years of experience across a variety of different aircraft types and simulator manufacturers demanding towards the upper end of the scale.
Geographic location of training centre - as with most kinds of employment, the geographic region in which your'e employed plays a large part in how much you get paid. Simulator training centres that operate in lower cost-of-living regions tend to have salaries skewed towards the lower end of the scale, and conversely those that operate in high cost-of-living areas skew towards the upper end of the scale.
Complexity of FSTDs being supported - roles that are strictly in support of lower fidelity devices (such as FNPTs, AATDs & some FTDS) tend to have commensurately lower salaries than those that are support one or more higher fidelity devices (such as Level D FFSs). As is the case in many training centres, the support of a range of devices from FNPTs/AATDs all the way up to Level D FFSs tends to require the salary is aimed at those with experience on the higher fidelity end of the spectrum (i.e. it's skewed towards the upper end of the scale).
Shift pattern required - some training centres operate 24/7/365 and others 8 - 5 Monday to Friday. Where permanent ongoing shifts are required to support the likes of a 24/7/365 operation, all else being equal (i.e. geography, device types, years of experience), the pay rates will be higher than those that are working a more "gentlemanly" Monday to Friday roster. Typically this is because of employment regulations of the host nation requiring certain types of ongoing rotating permanent shifts requiring some kind of additional compensation.
Basic supply and demand - as with almost everything in the world, market economies run on a simple push and pull between supply and demand. Simply put, where there is a low supply of highly skilled simulator support technicians and engineers, and there is an increasing demand due to new training centres opening, or the retirement of older technicians and engineers (with all else being equal), you will see the salary levels possible for these roles push towards the higher end of the scale. This simple supply and demand based influence works the same with simulator technician roles as it does with many other roles in the broader world; however, due to the highly specialised nature of the work, and the relatively low amount of highly skilled people in this area the effect can be much more pronounced within simulator support roles.
What does a simulator technician do?
The role of a simulator technician or engineer is highly varied and can include a wide range of different tasks from purely technical through to customer experience. The variety of different work you need to complete as an FSTD technician or engineer is a huge part of what makes the role so appealing and leads to high levels of job satisfaction.
On a day to day basis you may be doing:
Reactive / corrective / unscheduled maintenance - this is when the flight simulator experiences an unplanned failure / discrepancy / unserviceability and the maintenance team need to react to fix the fault as quickly as possible to return the device to training while minimising downtime.
Preventative / scheduled maintenance - these tasks are (as the name suggests) scheduled in advance and are the way that the maintenance team reduces the likelihood of unscheduled maintenance being needed. I.e. these tasks are designed to make the simulator more reliable and experience faults less often so as to maximise the time it is available for training during standard scheduled hours. These tasks include anything from visual system maintenance (geometry alignment, brightness and colour matching, etc) to control loading maintenance (force calibration, alignment and offset calibration, etc) to motion system maintenance (lubrication, fluid analysis for hydraulic, snubber pressure top ups for EMM, etc).
Compliance preparation and qualification support - the ongoing need to undertake and support QTG testing requirements (mainly validation tests; aka objective tests, but also supporting functional and subjective testing alongside pilots). Technicians and engineers support all of the requirements to prepare for ongoing evaluation events carried out by regulator authorities. This is a time consuming and complex undertaking, and isn't usually something a junior technician gets to run with.
Customer / user experience representative - sim techs and engineers are the front line when it comes to interacting with the users of these magnificant machines. When there is a fault (or suspected fault) with the training device, a phone call is made by the user to the maintenance support number; and this is most often answered by the technician or engineer that is on duty at that time. This means that technicians and engineers can't be only technical masters, they need to know how to interact with pilots and other users to extract the best possible information relating to the fault - and to manage the expectations of the users while the fault is rectified. In short, soft skills are not a 'nice to have' when you're in this role, they're absolutely essential to keeping users happy and achieving the desired levels of customer satisfaction.
These are just a few examples of the kinds of things that your average simulator technician or engineer gets up to on a day-to-day basis. Too many more to list but from this small sample you get the picture!
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