Transfer of Training from a Full-Flight Simulator vs. a High Level Flight Training Device with a Dynamic Seat

摘要

This paper summarizes the most recent study conducted by the Federal Administration Administration/Volpe Center Flight Simulator Fidelity Requirements Program. For many smaller airlines, access to qualified simulators is limited due to the availability of simulators for certain airplanes and the costs of equipment acquisition, leasing, personnel travel, operation, and maintenance. The FAA/Volpe Center Flight Simulator Fidelity Requirements Program has endeavored to address this situation for more than a decade, first examining the most costly aspects of flight simulation in subject-matter-expert workshops and thenconducting a series of empirical investigations of the effect of simulator hexapod-platform motion on training effectiveness. This paper is the sequel to our 2007 AIAA Modeling-and-Simulation- Technologies Conference paper. In the earlier paper, we provided the scientific, technical, and operational background behind innovative solutions to provide motion cues in the simulator during airline-pilot training. We summarized three previous studies by the FAA/Volpe Center investigating the effect of hexapod-platform motion cues on training and evaluation ofairline pilots in Full Flight Simulators (FFS). This research did not find operationally relevant differences in performance or behavior of pilots tested in the FFS with motion after having been trained in the same FFS with the motion system turned on or off - despite selection of maneuvers that require motion cues, at least theoretically. It made no difference whether the FFS represented a small turboprop 'power house' or a sluggish four-engine jumbo jet, or whether the training in questionwas initial or recurrent training. Our 2007 paper also described a newlydeveloped simulator, the Full-Flight Trainer FFT-XTM (FFT), able to simulate motion without a hexapod-motion platform. The paper concluded by reporting a proof-of-concept study culminating in the successful typerating of six pilots on a twin-engine turboprop after training in the FFT only. The present paper reports the results of our successor study, comparing the training effectiveness of the FFT, the 'motion-cueing simulator without a motion base,' with its FFS equivalent. Not only doesthis study differ from the earlier studies by comparing FFS motion with an alternative method of motion cueing, but also by including pilots with minimal prior flight experience of fewer than 500 hours.