Accession Number:

ADA281828

Title:

Geographic Knowledge Acquisition Promoted by Map Study and Rehearsal Flight Methods

Descriptive Note:

Master's thesis

Corporate Author:

AIR FORCE INST OF TECH WRIGHT-PATTERSONAFB OH

Personal Author(s):

• Hutchinson, Scott T.

Report Date:

1994-01-01

Pagination or Media Count:

78.0

Abstract:

Three methods of pre-flight navigational preparation were evaluated, to address problems of geographic disorientation. Thirty pilots either actively flew a rehearsal of an upcoming flight, passively watched a replay of an active rehearsal, or participated in a map study session in order to learn a low level navigation route and the surrounding region. Following training, subjects were then asked to navigate along the previously learned route in a high fidelity simulator, which depicted environmental aspects of a real flight. The results indicated that the spatial resource demands of active flight control while navigating in the training condition overburdened any potential learning benefits of seeing the training environment. The route and survey knowledge acquired in the active training condition were significantly poorer than the knowledge acquired in map study and somewhat inferior to that acquired by the passive group. All groups had equal difficulty applying survey knowledge to an unrehearsed and unexpected navigation task.

Descriptors:

• *AIR NAVIGATION
• *FLIGHT SIMULATORS
• FLIGHT TRAINING
• GEOGRAPHY

Subject Categories:

• Aircraft
• Air Navigation and Guidance

Distribution Statement:

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE