Negative Transfer of Training: Simulator Study Into Effects of Going Beyond Alarms During Stall Recovery Training

An often-used practice in pilot simulator training is to let pilots respond to a situation that has gone wrong. This may require the trainee to postpone their intervention, so that they can experience the cues and sensations signaling the critical situation, and have an opportunity to practice the appropriate response. However, some aviation-training experts have raised concerns about this practice. They argue that it might cause negative transfer of training when pilots suppress responses to alerts. These experts suggested that it is better to only train situations in which pilots immediately respond to situations going wrong. This study tested whether these two approaches to stall recovery training differently affect the learning and performance of pilots. Commercial airline pilots (N = 40) practiced stall recoveries for 30 minutes in the Desdemona flight simulator, which has a representative aerodynamic model and an extended motion envelope suitable for stall cueing. One group of pilots recovered from training scenarios that started in pause at the moment of the required response (Freeze group), while another group manually flew the aircraft into the stalls, going beyond alarms (Dynamic group). Before and after the training, pilots performed a stall recovery test that was not surprising. Other actively flown post-tests included a surprising ground proximity warning, a surprising stall, and a false stall alarm. In an additional post-test, the pilots’ ability to recognize stall cues was tested in six passive situations of true and false stalls, and pilots had to indicate whether the presented situation involved a stall or not. An extensive number of stall recovery performance parameters and other behavioral parameters was tested. The training affected stall recovery positively for the whole group on nearly all parameters. When inspecting group differences, the authors unexpectedly found that the Dynamic group experienced more time pressure than the Freeze group when confronted with the surprising ground proximity warning and surprising stall. They also showed no significant decrease in experienced time pressure from Non-surprise pre-test to post-test while the Freeze group did. Trends suggest more aggressive pitch down responses to a surprising stall in the Freeze group, and better recognition of stall and non-stall situations by the Dynamic group. No other significant differences or trends in performance were found. The increase in experienced time pressure may point to a potential hazard of too much contrast between self-paced stall events in the simulator and externally-paced surprising events in operational practice. The results further suggest that Dynamic training increased the pilots’ ability to recognize stall cues.

  • Record URL:
  • Record URL:
  • Supplemental Notes:
    • Cover date: May 2022.
  • Corporate Authors:

    Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research

    Human Performance
    Soesterberg,   Netherlands 

    Federal Aviation Administration

    Aircraft Certification Service
    Washington, DC  United States  20591

    Federal Aviation Administration

    William J. Hughes Technical Center
    Aviation Research Division
    Atlantic City International Airport, NJ  United States  08405
  • Authors:
    • Landman, A
    • Mol, D
    • van Emmerik, M L
    • Groen, E L
  • Publication Date: 2022-4

Language

  • English

Media Info

  • Media Type: Digital/other
  • Edition: Final Report
  • Features: Figures; References; Tables;
  • Pagination: 49p

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01847515
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Report/Paper Numbers: DOT/FAA/TC-22/10
  • Files: NTL, TRIS, ATRI, USDOT
  • Created Date: May 31 2022 9:13AM