Simulator Design and Instructional Features for Air-to-Ground Attack: A Transfer Study

A transfer experiment was conducted to define simulator design requirements and instructional procedures for an air-to-ground attack trainer. Two levels of scene detail, three levels of field of view, and three levels of simulator training trials were manipulated. Student naval aviators were pretrained in the Visual Technology Research Simulator (VTRS) on a 30-deg bombing maneuver before their performances were assessed in their standard weapon training course. Other students not pretrained in the VTRS were used for control comparisons. Prior experience in the VTRS helped student pilots use their weapon flight time more effectively. The most substantial transfer gains were produced by the first 24 simulation training trials; there was little additional benefit from further training. There was no evidence of differential transfer from the different simulator conditions. These trends indicate that physical fidelity is not a requirement for positive transfer and lend further support to the need for a concept such as psychological fidelity or functional equivalence.

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