This is aviation work, you always always always check the work you are doing with the manual. One mistake could be someone's life. The entire aviation industry is checklist and procedure driven.
Have they done any studies on the benefits of using the simplified language vs the time investment it takes to produce the manuals to spec?
I'd imagine most of the gain comes from companies with a high number of ESL workers - but it sounds like it may be a tool that a bureaucratic, control obsessed, management culture likes but is largely just busy work parading as productivity gains.
It could also make the technical manual writers lazy or use less editing because they lean on the language instead of investing real thought into making their communication effective and easy to understand.
As machine translation of english continues to improve, I'm curious how useful it will be. And the feature of "Reducing ambiguity" (according to Wikipedia) is something that can be solved in many different ways without having to invent a whole new simplified language subset for all communication.
Either way that's an interesting example of how serious they take this stuff.
I don't work in aviation, but you can produce much better documentation by following at least the spirit of this vs. the specific grammars and vocabulary.
Engineers and IT people are often not very strong in writing ability, and there are many non-native speakers in technology. I've seen situations where "Cute" documentation with TV references (infrastructure placement was captured by types of disney vs. looney tunes characters) and lots of implied context. Having a style guide that forces simplicity can be a high value.
