Exploring the Impact of New and Emerging Training Technologies on the Institution of Commercial Flight Training in Australia

This research investigates how the commercial flight training system in Australia is impacted by new and emerging training technologies. The research examined historically and presently how the system is shaped by technological change, how the stakeholders in the system both drive and react to this process, and implications for the future. Findings suggest that technological change creates pressure for regulatory change to allow greater use of technologies. However, this increasing use was accompanied by more extensive regulatory control. At present prescriptive regulatory control means only a major airline has the institutional legitimacy to enact substantive change in the training system.