The advent of bigger and more expensive tractors on farms has encouraged the purchase of simulators to safely and effectively teach the basics of operation in the classroom.

The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) has funded the purchase of 18 tractor driving simulators from the Swedish company Tenstar, and these are now operational.

Opportunity to practice

Four of these simulators are based at Kildalton, Co. Kilkenny, with the others, placed in pairs, at the other Teagasc-run colleges around Ireland.

Purchased last year at a price of €60,000 apiece, they are now installed and the colleges are getting to grips with how best to integrate them into the various courses, not the most straightforward of tasks as they themselves are having to learn as they go along.

Kildalton Simulators tractors
Linking the simulators allows Colm Pierce (left) and Piaras Murphy to practice unloading a combine on the go

That is not to say the expense is wasted, far from it according to Francis Quigley of Teagasc, who notes that it was always going to be a learning curve as the concept is new to agricultural training and the potential has still to be fully explored.

Francis went on to explain that with the displacement of smaller tractors from many farms, students are not likely to have the driving experience that was often obtainable before.

The larger, and heavier, tractors found on farms can do an awful lot of damage when things go wrong, so younger folk don’t always get as much opportunity to drive them, although there are plenty who are perfectly competent by the time they get to college.

Simulators for safety

At the end of college there await employers who will expect students the be able to handle tractors and equipment safely, and caught in the middle are the colleges who are expected to provide them.

Addressing this issue is the basic premise behind their purchase, but the question still remains as to how useful they will be in doing so, and that is directly dependent upon how realistic they are.

The best way to asses this is to climb on board and give it a go and that is precisely what I did when visiting the college recently.

From diggers to tractors

Tenster first produced the simulators for training in the construction sector and then added agricultural machines to its portfolio, a move which other manufacturers have yet to make, and it was for this reason that the company was chosen as a supplier.

Kildalton college tractor simulators
The four simulators at Kildalton are housed in their own room with students encouraged to practice their skills out of classroom hours

The seat is therefore a multipurpose type but it could easily be found in any tractor, setting the student up for a realistic experience.

The controls can be adjusted for height and reach and there is a two-pedal box mounted rather than the directional peddles of a digger.

A joystick on the right-hand-side is configured for a loader, but other functions, such as gear change can be activated instead. These simulators are set up as CVT tractors of around 130-150hp so that particular feature is not activated.

Seeing is believing

There are three screens in front of the driver, the central one represents the view through the windscreen while the other two show the view through the cab doors.

It is possible to achieve all round vision using virtual reality goggles but they can induce nausea due to the disconnect between what the eyes are seeing and the body is feeling, so they are not used by the college.

There is a fourth screen mounted behind the student giving a view out of the back of the tractor while wing mirrors are included on the two side screens which do work in sync with the rest of the features, to give a passable impression of what is going on behind.

Structured learning

The first exercise when starting a session on the simulator is a walk round of the vehicle checking the tyres and oil levels etc.; a basic of tractor operation which is firmly instilled at this point and this exercise can be set so that the tractor won’t move until it is completed.

Once moving, the tractor accelerates depending on the load it has behind, there is some movement in the seat to suggest travelling over rough ground but not enough to tip you onto the floor.

Another basic exercise is braking, with the list of situations culminating in an attempted stop with a laden but unbraked trailer.

The result was a jack-knife and the tractor was left steaming quietly in the hedgerow. Lesson learnt!

Jack knife Kildalton college simulator
How not to stop a tractor! An unbraked trailer and heavy load resulted in an uncontrolled jack-knife

It is by having students perform these exercises that they absorb the basics of vehicle control and for that the simulator has enormous value.

Setting off down a real road in a real tractor with the trailer brakes disconnected is hardly advisable, but the simulator gives a passable impression of the consequences of doing so.

Actions and consequences

Yet it is not quite perfect. For many, the natural reaction when in a skid is to come off the brakes slightly, but this did not kick in for me on the simulator.

There was an element of trying to control the screen rather than the vehicle, but it can’t be argued that importance of having working brakes on tractor and trailer is graphically demonstrated.

Other farm operations covered are using a front-end loader and reversing a trailer. The joystick control of the loader is certainly an impressive rendering of the real thing and clearing a field of virtual bales is excellent practice for a novice.

Reversing a trailer, however, was not quite so straightforward as one of the problems with the visual displays is a lack of perspective.

This is not an issue when going forward, or even when using the loader, but the rendition of the trailer in relation to the background was, to my eyes, less than perfect.

Expanding the simulators’ role

Yet these shortcomings should not distract from the overall value of the simulators as tools for learning and boosting confidence.

Putting beginners atop a big tractor and expecting them to learn on the job is no longer feasible nor safe; the simulators will certainly help in familiarisation with tractor operation and behaviour, elevating confidence as they do so.

The college is presently working with Tenstar to develop a fertiliser spreader app that will enable the teaching of GPS systems as it will lay down A-B lines and simulate the need to set bout widths and headlands.

This will add value to the machines and further ingrate them into the curriculum, but for the time-being, they are being deployed as a supplement to the real thing rather than a direct replacement.

Francis, and the students who have used the simulators, remain enthusiastic about their use and there is a genuine appreciation of how they can improve skills without tying up physical resources and staff.

It is still early days, but all involved believe their full potential is yet to be realised.