The trainer replacement programme has slipped a further year, and the reason is not the aircraft. It is an unresolved argument about how much of a pilot's training can be done on the ground.
Why the ratio decides the order
Simulator credit is the proportion of required flight hours that may be completed in a ground device. Move that ratio by ten percentage points and the number of airframes needed to produce the same number of qualified pilots changes substantially.
The procurement cannot be sized until the ratio is fixed. The ratio cannot be fixed until the training authority is satisfied that the device delivers equivalent competence. And that evidence takes a full training cycle to gather.
The evidence so far
Where high-fidelity devices have been evaluated, the results are consistent in shape: procedural training transfers to the aircraft extremely well, and handling training at the edge of the envelope transfers less well.
This points toward a split rather than a single ratio — generous credit for procedures, systems management and emergencies, tighter limits for handling. Several authorities are moving that way, which is better policy and harder to write into a contract.
The cost argument cuts both ways
Simulators are cheaper per hour to operate, and that comparison is usually where the discussion begins and ends. It leaves out the capital cost of the devices, the instructor staffing they require, and the facility they sit in.
For a large training pipeline, the ground-based option is still clearly cheaper. For a small one, the fixed costs do not amortise, and the aircraft may well be the better buy. Programmes that have applied a large fleet's economics to a small fleet's requirement have generally regretted it.
What happens next
The training authority is expected to publish an interim ratio that allows the procurement to proceed, with a review clause once the first cohort has completed a full cycle.
That is a sensible way to unblock a stalled programme. It also means the fleet will be sized on provisional evidence, and that the review will arrive after the contract is signed — which is the point at which changing the number becomes expensive rather than merely difficult.
