Goal

The goal of this analysis is to prepare the JSF Training IPT for source selection and E&MD by identifying critical training issues that must be adequately addressed and resolved by the WSC.

Since the JSF will not have any 2-seat aircraft built, the program office needs to identify any areas of concern, with regards to safety and training effectiveness, for JSF initial qualification pilot training. Specifically, this study will identify the tasks and skills that are currently trained in legacy training aircraft with two seats and begin to assess viable options for safely and effectively training similar tasks in the JSF. This data will help the Program Office evaluate WSC proposals for alternative means of safely and effectively training JSF pilots. This could be done through aircraft or training system design and technological advancements.

To meet the redefined requirements of the JSF Program Office, the survey items will need to be restructured. To accomplish this and still ensure content validity, we are recommending that IJOA host another workshop with SME representation from each of the JSF partnering services. Every effort will be made to use the same SMEs from the previous workshop to capitalize on their learning curve. The revised survey will focus exclusively on 2-seat training events in the initial qualification training course syllabi for each legacy aircraft. The appropriate SMEs will identify the major tasks trained or evaluated in those events for each aircraft. For each task, we will ask the survey respondents to identify the purpose(s) for having an instructor in the back seat for those flights. It is expected that the purposes will be broken down into the following four defined categories with an option to specify some other purpose:

• Safety of flight
• Demonstrate the execution of a task
• Provide immediate, over-the-shoulder feedback and instructions
• Evaluate Performance
• Other: __________________

It is likely that there could be multiple reasons for having an IP in the back for a particular task. Based on SME recommendations, we may have them rank order the primacy of the reasons or allocate percentages across each of the reasons (i.e. 70% safety, 20% feedback, 10% Evaluation). This part of the survey should provide fairly reliable, straight-forward data for the Program Office that highlights each of the critical training tasks in legacy aircraft and why 2-seaters are currently used for those flights. We then would like to take the opportunity to go one step further and try and get some feedback from this large sample size on alternative technologies or training methods (i.e. GCAS or in-flight data link) that could be used to still train these types of tasks in JSF with an acceptable level of risk and a high level of training effectiveness.