Innovation Flight Augments Pilot Training Through VR

Columbus Air Force Base’s Innovation Flight has continued its efforts to integrate virtual reality (VR) technology into pilot training, creating pilots for the U.S. Air Force faster.

The Innovation Flight’s ambitions are to cultivate skills such as situational awareness, risk management, decision making and to augment the training student pilots go through. To do this, the flight incorporates modern technology, aiding the student pilots throughout their training process. The flexible syllabus contains the essential building block approach of basic mission elements to accommodate each student’s different learning habits while still hitting the intangible aspects of a successful aviator.

Lt. Col. Christopher Harris, 41st Flying Training Squadronchief pilot and director of the Innovation Flight, said students from theflight have executed the training requirements slightly faster than the averagepilot in the normal syllabus. He also said one notable difference was thecompletion of the syllabus track for a T-1 Jayhawk. Where the traditionalstudent has completed the syllabus in 47 aircraft sorties, the Innovation Flight’squickest student completed with only 42 sorties while passing all the samestandards as the traditional students.

The reason the Innovation Flight incorporates VR tools, suchas the Oculus Go into their syllabus, is to make pilots more prepared and tohelp drive the student’s airborne training farther. With the help of VRequipment, students see the things they would normally see in an aircraft whilebeing able to follow their procedures as the class instructors providesfeedback and grading.

“Being a new pilot in training, visual references are a bigpart of doing patterns,” said Second Lt. Matthew Demarco, 14th Student Squadronstudent pilot. “My flight got into the VR flight simulations early, so we had ahead start going into things. Even though VR does not simulate the feeling ofthe aircraft, the way you can see the visual references and getting to interactwith the instruments used in departures and landings made it easy to progressthroughout the rest of the training.”

In the VR simulation, students can practice everything fromstarting up the aircraft to landing it. The ability to use this tool extendsthe students’ familiarity with the aircraft they are going to fly before theystep foot in it.

Demarco said sometimes having additional sensory inputsduring an aircraft flight can be overwhelming while learning basic maneuvers,but by using the VR equipment, a student has the option to pause the flight,look around, and then continue, which is a luxury not available in a realtraining mission.

“You can see real life problems that might occur in thesortie, this gives insight to what you can expect while in a real flyingtraining exercise,” said Demarco.

The Innovation Flight is exploring ways to utilize VR toolsto help students stay on track with extended breaks due to things like weather,maintenance, transitioning to a new phase or even holidays.

“There are some things the VR is good for and some things it is not,” said Harris. “The VR does not replace actual flight training but what we do here at Innovation Flight is to try and leverage the things that it is good for. We then place it into the appropriate spot in the syllabus, continue to evolve as the technology develops and create better pilots, faster.”

Source: US Air Force