industry COULD VIRTUAL REALITY be the secret ingredient to creating better pilots? STORY BY ROB MARK ERAU believes its VR-XR laboratory has an answer 50 avionics news * november 2022 t's no secret the airlines, business aviation and even flight schools are struggling to meet the demand for cockpit crew members. Although the Air Line Pilots Association disputes the personnel shortage, major and regional airlines have parked airplanes and canceled flights due to a lack of personnel. Regional carriers have also recently boosted pilot pay rates to slow the tide of aviators leaving their employment for one of the coveted cockpits at a major. Independent flight training schools and universities have found themselves coming up short of flight instructors as they try to turn out more pilots more quickly. And of course, there's the hurdle that never seems to disappear; learning to fly has never been cheap, not to mention that the flight training regime - one instructor, one student pilot and one airplane per lesson - hasn't changed much since the days of Wilbur and Orville Wright. There's gotta be a better way. I