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.

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Jack Dohme