The Future Of Flight Training Is A Gamer Headset That Watches You Play
Google and other companies are helping design a smarter, cheaper way to produce aviators.
By Patrick Tucker
Technology Editor
December 9, 2020
In the 1986 film Iron Eagle, aspiring fighter pilot Doug Masters rehearses for a dangerous mission in a flight simulator the size of a barn. He can’t practice when there’s no technician around, or when it’s needed by other pilots. Believe it or not, flight training hasn’t changed a great deal since, said Eric Frahm, a program manager with the Defense Innovation Unit, or DIU — though a new Air Force program involving Google and other companies looks to change that, enabling pilots to learn much faster through off-the-shelf gamer equipment and better collection of performance data.
Frahm says that the basics of flight training have remained largely static for decades. “You read about [how to fly]; you do it in a classroom; you take an academic test; you do it in a simulator; then you go do it in an airplane. So you really only get two to three looks at something before it’s time to really perform and essentially get evaluated on it,†he said The result is “a lowest-common-denominator approach to training.â€
The Future Of Flight Training Is A Gamer Headset That Watches You Play
