The Statistical Analysis of  Finding Optimum Ratio between Real Aircraft and Simulator Flights: An Application to Army Aviation

Flight training is a very complicated process. Including the full flight simulators makes this much more complicated, indeed supposed to make it easy.  Flight simulators are very important devices, eliminating difficulties, cost and risks likely to be encountered in flight training. It is essential that simulators shall be used to decrease the cost and increase efficiency of trainings. However, flight simulator is not a unique solution, itself. For several reasons, real aircraft shall also be used, at this point, a hyhbrid solution must be established and an optimum training ratio between real aircraft and flight simulators is essential for decisive curriculum. The aim of the work is to find optimum usage ratio between real aircraft (helicopter is considered in this study) and flight simulators in Army Aviation training system. Hence, a field study questionnaire was developed and delivered to 145 experienced army helicopter pilots. The questionnaire consists of three parts. First, the demographic features, including flight qualifications and experiences of the pilots were figured out. In the second part, importance of simulators, their effectiveness, characteristics and pilots’ expectations were researched. Finally, optimum usage ratio between real aircraft and flight simulators was asked. The study population was established from different pilotage status and experience levels in order to set up the homogeneity. Data collected from the study population and subordinate topics in the questionnaire were delineated with factor analysis, ANOVA, reliability tests, Tukey’s test of additivity, Chi-square and some other statistical analysis in SPSS 11.0.  

Keywords: data analyzing, factor analysis, flight ratio, training, simulator, statistical procedures.
JEL Classification: C12, C49, C80