Author: John E. Stewart

Publisher:

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 80

ISBN-13:

The Army must balance cost and training effectiveness in acquiring a Kiowa Warrior Crew Trainer (KWCT). This entails determining the least fidelity required for specific training objectives, employing the least costly technology. A fidelity analysis was conducted which involved (a) analysis of training requirements, (b) review of the literature, and (c) empirical assessment of a benchmark KWCT. Subject matter experts (SMEs) identified 13 tasks for which training in the aircraft alone was inadequate. It was concluded that the KWCT should train these tasks under the full range of visibility conditions and when affected by obscurants. The literature revealed virtually no data on display resolution required to train tasks other than target detection and identification. It also implied that a visual display system with adequate field-of-view (FOV) and resolution for target detection and identification at realistic standoff ranges would be prohibitively expensive. For the benchmark KWCT assessment, small sample size made performance evaluation difficult. Gunnery was more affected by degraded depth cues when resolution was low (480 lines), than when high (768 lines). Low resolution was perceived as inadequate for all tasks and high resolution as marginally adequate for gunnery. FOV was perceived as less critical to gunnery than to general flying.