Review of Flight Training Technology

The state of the art of aircrew training technology, particularly in simulation, was reviewed as part of a program to identify areas in which nap-of- the-earth (NOE) aircrew training might be most readily improved. Ground-based devices that simulate flight are both effective and cost-effective for initial flight training; with time, as a student's skill increases, the simulator becomes decreasingly cost-effective compared with actual flight. The more complex and costly the simulator, the sooner it will cease to be cost-effective but the more realistic its simulation is likely to be. Optimum fidelity must be determined for each training objective; although more realistic simulation does not necessarily produce more effective transfer of training generally, exact fidelity is vital in teaching procedural skills. Present flight simulators are much less useful in NOE training than in general helicopter pilot training because they cannot properly reproduce the visual field outside the cockpit. Of other innovations in pilot training, computer-assisted instruction can be used for any lecture-type training; measurement of residual attention could be useful in assessing NOE pilot performance.