Future Directions for Cost Effective Air Force Aircrew Training: Managed Technology and the Training System

Abstract

Although early simulation efforts were slow to be accepted and exploited, their value in reducing flight training risk and cost has resulted in the development and use of modern technology to the point where today many airline training programs require zero hours of inflight training time. This means that the first time a first officer steps into the real airplane to fly it is full of passengers. The savings from these efforts in terms of dollars, safety and time to train have been so significant that airlines were able to pay for their entire training programs with the fuel savings alone.

The oil embargo provided the military the incentive to try and achieve the same type of benefit as the airlines, from its aircrew training programs, through an extensive use of aircrew training devices. Early in this effort, the military realized that the vast differences between commercial airline operations and military missions made it extremely difficult to apply ground based trainers to the same extent as the airlines. Simulators lacked the fidelity to reproduce the military training environment.

This paper will review the current situation concerning simulation within the Air Force and outline the steps we are taking to better apply training simulation to the military mission. It reviews the challenges still lying ahead, especially in the areas which require the exploitation of human factors research and application.