Pilots who verbalized instrument information were better able to maintain control during simulator sessions involving potentially disorienting flight scenarios, according to a recent report by South Korean researchers.1
The report, published in the December issue of Aerospace Medicine and Human Performance, described a small study involving 30 male South Korean fighter pilots, half of whom were instructed to immediately verbalize the information they gleaned from flight instruments during simulator studies of six scenarios that incorporated specific types of spatial disorientation (SD). Their scores were compared with those of the 15 pilots who went through the same scenarios, but without verbalizing the information they saw on their instruments.
“In maintaining flight performance, the VR [verbal reports] group, respectively, had 8 percent and 10 percent higher scores for altitude and speed than the non-VR group,” the report said.
The res…
