United States Department of Transportation
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Effectiveness of Personal Computers to Meet Recency of Experience Requirements
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2003-02-01
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[PDF-284.32 KB]
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Edition:Final Report
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Abstract:The purpose of the current study was to investigate the effectiveness of Personal Computer Aviation Training Devises (PCATDs) and Flight Traning Devices (FTDs) to meet FAA recency of experience requirements for instrument flight. Two types of training devices were tested: 1) an FAA approved PCATD; and 2) a Frasca 141 FTD. An Instrument Proficiency Check (IPC) was given to all subjects in the airplane to establish a performance baseline (IPC #1). After the completion of IPC #1 in the airplane, the subjects were randomly assigned to one of four groups: the PCATD, the FTD, the aircraft or the control group with a balancing constraint so that the subjects successfully completing IPC #1 were equally distributed among the four groups. During the six-month period, each subject received two recency of experience flights of about 1.8 hours each in either the PCATD, the FTD or the aircraft; the control group received no recency training. These recency of experience flights included three instrument approaches, holding procedures, and intercepting and tracking navigation radials and courses. After the six-month period, performance on an IPC in the airplane (IPC #2) compared pilots who received recency of experience in the training devices to a control group. The subjects in the PCATD and FTD group were also compared to the aircraft group who received recency of experience in the airplane. A comparison of the three training groups with the control group performance on the final instrument proficiency check indicated that the training groups performed significantly better than the control group. The study also indicated that PCATDs are effective in maintaining recency of experience for instrument rated pilots over a period of six months. The two recency of experience practice sessions resulted in significantly better performance for the PCATD group on an IPC compared to the control group. Practice in either the PCATD or the FTD resulted in higher pass rates compared to the control group and practice in the PCATD and the FTD was found to be at least as effective as practice in the airplane. Finally, the performance of the PCATD group was statistically indistinguishable from the FTD group. These findings present compelling evidence that the FAA should permit the use of PCATDs to maintain recency of experience for instrument pilots.
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