Sheyk Alves Souza is currently working remotely for Airways International from Brazil, utilising his skills as a simulator pilot to support Airservices Australia’s mobile simulation training. In this article, Sheyk tells us a bit about the remote sim piloting service he’s providing, and his experiences running exercises for Airservices Australia air traffic controllers. The introduction of the technology has delivered significant efficiencies in ATC critical safety training.
I’m delivering remote simulator services for Airservices Australia, supporting the Cyclical Compromised Separation certification of tower controllers through Compromised Separation training exercises in their TotalControl mobile simulator. These exercises are tailored to simulate real-world separation breakdown scenarios and are part of their competency requirements.
These sessions simulate situations where aircraft inadvertently breach separation standards, whether due to pilot deviation, misunderstood clearances or system malfunctions. The mobile simulation training focuses on reinforcing ATC procedures to manage and recover from these scenarios safely and efficiently.
So far, I’ve run sessions for controllers training in the mobile simulator at Bankstown Tower, Alice Springs Tower, Adelaide Tower, and Parafield Tower (one of Australia’s busiest general aviation airports). Most recently, we wrapped up a few intense weeks of simulator sessions for Sydney Tower – while I won’t brag about how busy they are, let’s just say we reached up to 80 aircraft movements per hour. I had to keep a bottle of water handy just to keep pace!
I’m currently based in a remote rural area in Brazil. I’ve been able to operate from here thanks to a surprisingly great setup – fibre optic cable runs through the farm, and we’ve tapped into it at our homestead. With 700/500 Mbps download/upload speeds and 3ms ping, the system has been performing above even my most optimistic expectations. On the technical side, everything has run seamlessly.
Sim sessions have been running from 6am to 2pm AEST, which translates to 5pm to 1am Brasilia time (UTC-3). This is actually a perfect fit, as it leaves my daytime hours free to take care of farm matters.
It’s a privilege to deliver Compromised Separation training for Airservices Australia. The simulations are so immersive that I genuinely feel like I’m there. I’ve got huge respect for the ATCOs. They manage incredibly complex traffic with such calm professionalism, keeping the wheels turning even when the unexpected hits. It’s an honour to support their work.
Sheyk Alves Souza – Airways International simulator pilot
