Unconventional Visual Displays for Flight Training.

Abstract : Use of simulators for flight instruction has typically followed the pattern of using similar instructional approaches to those that have traditionally been used for in-flight instruction. However, there is a growing awareness that a simulator permits radical departures from the traditional methods. Some of these may be less expensive or even more effective in terms of acquiring the skill. The general purpose of the research reported here was to examine training effectiveness for basic flight tasks of radically different methods of displaying the information that is necessary to support learning of the tasks. Four different visual displays were evaluated for their effectiveness in the acquisition of flight tasks in a simulator. The control condition had a wide field-of-view, a horizon and a checkerboard ground plane that obeyed laws of motion and perspective. The experimental displays were: (1) a narrow field-of-view with horizon and checkerboard ground plane; (2) an outside viewpoint of an aircraft; and (3) a display that consisted only of normal flight instruments. Flight-naive subjects were taught to fly straight-and-level for twenty trials with either the control or one of the experimental displays and then tested for twenty trials on the control display. Training, transfer, and differential transfer performance was examined.