A comparison of the effectiveness of a personal computer-based aircraft training device and a flight training device at improving pilot instrument proficiency: a case study in leading regulatory change in aviation education

Aviation educators have long sought economical and effective ways to simulate how an aircraft flies. In particular, there has always been an interest in simulating the procedures and practices of operating an aircraft in instrument flight conditions, when no horizon is visible. Because the costs of flying aircraft continue to increase, there has been an interest in adopting the technology of the microcomputer to bring realistic flight simulation at lower costs to the general aviation market. The introduction of the personal computer-based aircraft training device, or PCATD, in the late 1990s stimulated the academic investigation of this technology for use in collegiate aviation education activities. Initially Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulators dismissed this technology as gaming software and hardware, but the successful use of PCATD technology for training general aviation pilots as shown by academic studies convinced the FAA in 1997 (AC 61-126) to approve the use of PCATDs as an equivalency to actual flight time, but for only a portion of that equivalency allowed for FAA approved FTDs. This study, a comparison of the effectiveness of a PCATD with that of an FAA approved FTD for maintaining an instrument pilot's ILS proficiency, is another effort to stimulate FAA acceptance of this new technology as an effective and economical way to provide valid simulated learning activities to the general aviation community. Specifically, this study found that there was no significant statistical difference between using the PCATD or the FAA approved FTD for maintaining an instrument pilot's ILS proficiency. This study also found that there was no statistical significant difference in either device's effectiveness at maintaining an instrument pilot's proficiency. The process of regulatory change in any bureaucracy is a time-consuming process. As Kocks (2005) wrote, the FAA adapts change on the same pace that mountains form. However, the challenge of new simulation technology, in this study the PCATD, will not abate, and aviation educators and regulators should accept it as an effective means by which the general aviation pilot community can maintain, and improve, the safety of its instrument flight practices.