AUTOMATED PRIMARY HELICOPTER INSTRUCTION:
THE INTELLIGENT FLIGHT TRAINER
Jack Dohme
Army Research Institute Rotary Wing Aviation Research Unit
Fort Rucker, Alabama
ABSTRACT
The Army Research Institute Rotary Wing Aviation
Research Unit (ARI RWARU) has developed and
evaluated a family of low-cost training devices
designed specifically to support initial entry training
in rotary wing flight. This effort has led to the
development of the Intelligent Flight Trainer (IFT)
which is an automated, Expert System based device
designed to train the basic helicopter flight skills such
as hovering flight and traffic pattern flight.
The UH-1 Training Research Simulator (UH-1TRS),
developed in FY86, demonstrated that a low-cost
trainer could: 1) Provide positive Transfer of
Training (TOT) to the UH-1 aircraft using Army
Initial Entry Rotary Wing (IERW) flight students as
research subjects. 2) Substitute for actual UH-1
flight time in Primary Phase IERW training. 3)
Serve as a vehicle for the development of the
Automated Hover Trainer; an Expert System (ES)
based training device that demonstrated positive TOT
to hovering skills in the UH-1 aircraft.
The UH-1TRS/Automated Hover Trainer (AHT) was
shown to support significant TOT to the aircraft at
substantially reduced training cost given that the
hourly operating cost of the simulator is
approximately 10% that of the aircraft. The AHT
used ES logic to provide initial training in hovering
flight in lieu of a dedicated Instructor Pilot (IP).
As the Army adopted the TH-67 Creek aircraft for
Primary Phase IERW training, it was necessary to
upgrade the low-cost trainer to the TH-67 airframe.
The IFT was developed to simulate the TH-67 and to
further develop the idea of automated initial entry
training to include additional maneuvers from the
Primary Phase IERW curriculum. Work in FY96 has
developed a TH-67 simulator from a crashed OH-58
airframe and further developed the automated training
concept to train traffic pattern maneuvers using
Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) technology.
The IFT is designed for implementation as a primary
pre-trainer for IERW students who learn basic flight
skills in the simulator and then transfer those skills
to the helicopter on the flight line saving training
costs and enhancing flight training safety.
BIOGRAPHY
Jack Dohme earned a Ph.D. in experimental
psychology from the University of Arizona. He has
been performing aviation human factors research with
ARI RWARU for 19 years. He is currently serving
as Chairman of the SAE Simulation Technology
Committee. Jack was appointed as an Adjunct
Professor of Aerospace Engineering at The University
of Alabama. He holds Private Pilot ratings in fixed
wing and rotary wing aircraft..
