An Evaluation of Ground-Based Flight Trainers in Routine Primary Flight Training

Abstract

The relative benefits of different types of flight training equipment were evaluated in a routine instructional situation with no particular constraints placed upon the instructor as to how he used the equipment and without interfering with the normal course of flight training. The specific objectives of this research program were: (1) to evaluate the flight instructors' ability to predict success in private pilot training on the basis of students' initial performances in each of two ground trainers as opposed to actual aircraft, (2) to determine the relative value of 11 hours of flight instruction in two different ground trainers, and (3) to develop an objective scale for checking flight proficiency. There was a significant positive correlation of 0.50 between predictions based on two hours of training in the ground-based trainers and actual hours required to pass the flight check, but a nonsignificant negative correlation of 0.22 for predictions based on two hours in the aircraft. The ground trainer groups passed their flight checks with an average of slightly more than an how greater total time than those trained exclusively in the aircraft. On the basis of equivalent levels of group performance, 11 hours of training in the AN-T-18 resulted in a saving of 9 hours of flight time, thereby yielding a transfer effectiveness ratio of 0.8. Eleven hours of training in the GAT-1 resulted in a saving of 11 hours of flight time, yielding a transfer effectiveness ratio value of 1.0. The transfer effectiveness ratio is a new measure that directly relates the saving in learning one task to the amount of training on another.