SITUATIONAL AWARENESS TRAINING

THE AERIAL COMBAT DATA FROM WORLD WAR II AND ALL SUBSEQUENT ARMED CONFLICTS CONVINCINGLY DEMONSTRATE THAT TACTICAL MISSION EFFECTIVENESSHINGES ON THE EXCEPTIONAL PERFORMANCE OF A VERY FEW TRULY SUPERIOR PILOTS. THESE FEW TRULY SUPERIOR PILOTS HAVE IDENTIFIABLE CHARACTERISTICS THAT DISTINGUISH THEM FROM THEIR LESS SUCCESSFUL CONTEMPORARIES. AN EXTRA-ORDINARILY KEEN SITUATIONAL AWARENESS IS PARTICULARLY CRUCIAL TO SUPERIOR AIR COMBAT PERFORMANCE AND, ADDITIONALLY, POSITIVELY INFLUENCES OTHER CRITICAL PERFORMANCE FACTORS. A SITUATIONAL AWARENESS TRAINING SYSTEM IS PROPOSED THAT FOCUSES ON UNDERDEVELOPED AND UNEXPLOITED COGNITIVE AND AWARENESS CAPABILITIES. THE TRAINING APPROACH IS BASED ON THE DEVELOPMENT AND ENHANCEMENT OF SITUATIONAL AWARENESS AND RELATED COGNITIVE PROCESSES. LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS WILL BE CONDUCTED TO ASCERTAIN THE EXTENT TO WHICH THE DEVELOPMENT AND ENHANCEMENT OF HEIGHTENED AWARENESS AND ASSOCIATED COGNITIVE PROCESSES EXPAND THE VISUAL FIELD AND TRANSLATE INTO IMPROVED PERFORMANCE IN TARGET DETECTION, RECOGNITION, IDENTIFICATION, AND MANEUVERING DISCRIMINATION.