Exploring Virtual Reality Flight Training as a Viable Alternative to Traditional Simulator Flight Training

Participants flew three predefined circuits in a traditional flight simulator graphics condition (Broad Angle Display System, (BADS)), and conducted the same flight path and tasks using a VR graphics environment. The exploratory hypotheses in this research are that there would be no differences in the user experience, cognitive workload, and performance, between the two graphics conditions. User experience was gathered by a questionnaire probing motion sickness and other VR usability metrics. Cognitive load was gathered from a subjective rating in a questionnaire, derived from peripheral detection task, and by continuously measuring participant's physiological indices, including heart rate and galvanic skin response. Performance was obtained from flight path and airspeed deviations, and from flying precision.