An Alberta flight school with over 30 years of experience training pilots who support Catholic and Christian humanitarian missions is poised to enter a new state-of-the-art realm.

Prairie College’s Prairie Aviation Training Centre (PATC) in Three Hills, Alta., is embracing Canadian-made mixed reality (MR) flight simulators, which blend physical and virtual environments to offer interactive and immersive flight path training scenarios.

PATC students using the simulator start by sitting down in a Cessna 172 cockpit. The throttle, yoke and all other instruments are physically in front of them when the trainee pilot puts on their goggles to fire up the simulation. They can also see their own physical, non-digitized hands, which is considered an important feature, as a digital rendering of a hand used in other models has been known to cause simulation sickness.

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Dallas Derksen, the managing director of PATC, outlined that once a student looks outside the cockpit, “what they are seeing is virtual and three-dimensional. You see the world outside.”

Derksen, who has chartered many goodwill and medical evacuation flights since joining the Missionary Aviation Fellowship (MAF) Canada in 2010, said these simulators “are taking us from 1990 to 2030.”

Much is yet to be discovered about the potential of this technology. Certain benefits of the simulators, however, are immediately apparent to Derksen and his colleagues. Chiefly, students will be granted significantly more flight time during the winter months as they won’t have to factor in the dark skies and cold weather, developments that keep physical training planes on the ground.

By mitigating wintertime obstacles, Derksen said the MR simulators will expedite the pathway into the profession. He suggested that one hour in the simulator is akin to two or three hours in a physical airplane.

“We're hoping it will help our students to get through their flight training faster, potentially with savings in cost because flying a flight simulator is cheaper than flying an airplane,” said Derksen. “It's safer. If you do something terribly wrong in a simulator, you're still on the ground and you can reset the simulation.”

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The durability of physical aircraft also stands to benefit as less usage means a reduction of maintenance needs.

Beyond offering “exciting flight training” by harnessing this new technology, Derksen said the mission remains strong to ensure that as young aviators "grow in their piloting skills, they're also growing in their walk with God.” 

Ideally, Derksen would like his pupils “more prepared to leave here to then go potentially serve with agencies like Mission Aviation Fellowship, flying mission aviation all around the world and sharing God's love with people all around the world.”

Before assuming his position at PATC, Derksen flew MAF Canada shuttle and charter flights to aid missions in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan. On some occasions, he has flown food to areas suffering from drought, and other times, he has couriered missionaries to where they need to go to accomplish their philanthropic goals. Oftentimes, he offered medical transport.

“The infrastructure in many African countries is not great,” said Derksen. “Roads with potholes where if you hit them, your whole vehicle could dip into them and be stuck. It slows down travel, and with the muddy conditions during rainy seasons, it can take a long time to cover a very short distance. With our airplanes, you're able to be there within a few hours and then pick them up and transport them. A 20-minute flight can save somebody anywhere from six hours to two days of travel, depending on where they are in the world.”

He also spent over three years as a missionary pilot stationed in Mongolia. During each step of his journey, Derksen has been supported by his wife, Karen, and three children, Andrew, Katrina and Jacqueline.

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MAF Canada is eager for PATC to achieve the desired outcomes with the simulators. In an article on maf.ca, the organization expressed that it shares concerns about the growing pilot shortage across Canada.

According to the Canadian Council for Aviation and Aerospace (CCAA), if the current landscape does not change, Canada faces a shortfall of 6,000 pilots by 2036 due to an aging workforce, instructor shortage and the high cost and duration of training. MAF declared that “Without more pilots, many people around the world will not be able to get the essential medical, social and spiritual care they need.”