May 16, 2024
Virtual reality can make you feel like you’re really in the cockpit of an airplane and new research is showing it can be used effectively in training Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) pilots, according to defence scientist Dr. Ramy Kirollos.
DRDC is working with the 2 Canadian Forces Flying Training School to validate the effectiveness of virtual reality training for Royal Canadian Air Forces pilots.
“We wanted to know if VR training is as useful as currently used training methodologies and study whether there are any negative effects, in order to safely integrate VR,” says Dr. Kirollos, who works at Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) Toronto Research Centre.
Dr. Kirollos recently completed a research trial to quantitatively evaluate a custom VR pilot training simulator developed for the RCAF and any safety hazards of the training. He explains that rigorous science is needed to investigate unknown negative training effects that may lead to pilots learning operations poorly, which would potentially put themselves and others in danger.
In order to evaluate the quality of the VR simulator, Kirollos divided volunteers from the RCAF pilot training centre, 2 Canadian Forces Flying Training School (2 CFFTS), into two groups. The first group were student pilots who had never been in a full-fledged simulator. The second were expert pilot instructors with hundreds of hours flying in aircraft and simulators. Both groups were asked to complete the same constrained task, known as the overhead break flight manoeuvre, repeated seven times in a VR simulator. The overhead break is a technique for pilots to slow the aircraft through turning before landing. In potentially hostile situations, this technique can allow more pilots to land in a shorter period with less need for radio communications. Both novice and expert groups were evaluated using a validated criterion for performance on the task by expert pilot instructors and the results were compared.
“If the VR simulator is a good approximation of the live aircraft experience, the experts should do well and the novices should perform poorly,” Kirollos explains. The expectation is that the novices should be able to improve their performance marginally and the experts should remain consistent in their ability. This would demonstrate that the VR simulator is a valid and safe training adjunct for pilot training.
DRDC designed an experiment comparing the performance of expert and novice pilots using a virtual reality flight simulator to validate the effectiveness of the training.
Findings of the trial indicate that as expected, expert pilots performed at a high level, improving only slightly throughout the experiment, while student pilots began at a much lower performance level, gradually improving throughout the experiment.
RCAF pilots need to complete a specific amount of training in a simulator, but there is only a limited number of simulators in Canada. VR training could be a solution to get more pilots trained, while they are waiting to access the flight simulators. Kirollos notes that there was a backlog of training caused by the COVID-19 pandemic travel and gathering restrictions.
Some of the potential benefits of VR for training pilots is the smaller physical footprint, portability and lower cost. Six VR training stations can fit in the same space as one full flight simulator.
Dr. Kirollos collected data in research trials from November to December 2023, with further data collected in March 2024. Results are expected to be published by end of the year.
YouTube video - Text version
No audio. A person wearing a black jumpsuit uses a virtual reality headset in a specialized seat with a steering rudder and pedals. As he turns his head, video on a screen shows a corresponding view change from the cockpit of an airplane.
Scientific contributions:
- Dr. Ramy Kirollos
- Wasim Merchant