Successful Naval operations depend on the skills of qualified CIC teams and bridge personnel for shipboard piloting, navigation, collision avoidance, and target detection. Actual training at sea has potential limitations due to the low frequency of piloting and navigation exposure and the absence of extreme conditions. Piloting and Navigational Team Trainers are utilized by the United States Navy to provide at-sea realism in the classroom. The presently utilized trainers provide complete training for several team members, including radar operators, periscope operators, plotting team members, and fathometer operators. The trainers simulate actual radar presentations and periscope visual presentations, both correlated and responsive to vessel positions and maneuvers. The trainers provide for part-task training in radar operation, periscope operation, and target recognition. As a team trainer, all members of the piloting and navigational team interact and perform their associated navigational tasks.

Training systems such as the Piloting and Navigational Team Trainer are generally conceived as being cost effective and beneficial. Several questions arise when evaluating a training system such as this. They are:

* How effective is classroom training compared with at-sea training?

* Is a particular type of training curriculum more beneficial?

* What training capacity is required to satisfy the training requirements?

* How cost effective are the training systems, and specifically, how do per student-hour training costs in the classroom compare with the cost of at-sea training?

* Are technology improvements forthcoming that will reduce the training cost and increase the training benefits?

* Can additional training tasks be incorporated into the present piloting and navigational team trainers?

The answers to these questions should be of interest to all personnel involved with Naval navigation and Piloting and Navigational Team Trainers. This paper presents a summary of the existing technology and training concepts associated with Piloting and Navigational Team Trainers and provides the answers to the questions presented above. The research presented sets the groundwork for similar analysis that could be performed on any trainer system.