Exercises such as an engine failure or stalling can be taught in the simulator. As a result the pilot and instructor as less susceptible to the dangers presented when performing such manoeuvres in a real aircraft (Lee, 2005). Additionally, they can be used to further develop or even fine tune the skills of flight instructors. This is known as an education function of a simulator (Rantanen and Talleur, 2005).
Flight …show more content…
Specifically for simulated Instrument Flight Training the use of flight instruments is of major importance, as they make accurate information available to the pilot. Subsequently, it is paramount that care and precision are implemented when presenting instrument information; a need for high fidelity. Without high fidelity the significance of the exercise is irrelevant. Gerathewohl, (1969) noted that at the beginning and early stages of simulated instrument training, the use of higher quality cockpit displays and aids is beneficial.
Klauer (1997) stressed a greater physical fidelity will inevitably result in a greater transfer of skills to the aircraft. Conversely, Noble (2002) argues this may not be the case for everyone and instead may depend on the skill level of the individual. Furthermore, Noble (2002) infers high fidelity is highly preferable during simulator assessments of professional pilots, in order to forecast their performance. In contrast, the assessment of relatively low experience and novice pilots with the aid of high fidelity may yield insignificant transfer of learning (Noble, …show more content…
Even with a high level of fidelity the success of the simulator when evaluating the performance of experienced pilots maybe unsuccessful, as tasks become sufficiently more complexed (Nobel, 2002). The degree of fidelity, stage of learning, rate of learning transfer and learning environment are not mutually exclusive. (Noble, 2002).
One of fundamental concepts in flight simulation is Transfer of Training (TOT). TOT is the ability to apply a skilled behaviour in a given situation and can be replicated in a new condition. When the skilled behaviour empowers performance in alternative conditions positive transfer occurs. Contrariwise, negative transfer can take place when an adopted behaviour for a given situation results in degraded performance in another (Rolfe and Staples, 1986)
Notably flight simulators primarily focus on the evaluation and training of pilots. In order to assess the return on the investment made in the simulator, the use of the aircraft must be significantly reduced or even avoided. To allow for such as comparison to be made The Transfer Effectiveness Ratio (TER) is used (Rolfe and Staples, 1986) (See Equation