Soaring Immersive Device Training
Soaring AM-251 program used their Immersive Device Training facility this morning due to poor runway conditions caused by the snow storm Colorado had the past two days. Hopefully the weather will improve soon and we will be back at Davis Airfield to catch the current class of Soaring 251 in the gliders.
The Air Force Academy redesigned its airmanship program to give cadets more opportunities to experience the Air Force's Flying mission and to give them better training. The Airmanship Next program provides cadets an opportunity to experience aviation through the use of immersive technology based on virtual reality computing simulator. The Immersive Training Devices (IDT's) can be customized to benefit different learning styles and cadets can focus on getting mulitple repetitions on key aviation skills. It also allows cadets to get valuable training when weather prohibits actual flights. There are IDT's at Davis Airfield at Powered Flight and Soaring. There are also some IDT's up in the cadet area which gives cadets access outside of their scheduled airfield time to practice the skills they have learned at the airfield.
As stated by Jennifer Spradlin, U.S. Air Force Academy Public Affairs, 'The goal of the Airmanship program is to provide an operations-based experience utilizing current and emerging assets centered on one of the Air Force's three core missions-airpower-in order to develope leaders of character for today and tomorrow's Air Force. The continued success of Airmanship Next (IDT's) is crucial to ensuring the Academy graduates and commissions the best-prepared rated candidates for the Air Force.
The IDT's are not only used for cadets in the Soaring AM-251 course, but are also used for the instructor pilot upgrade process. This helps upper classman with their flying ability as well as helping them learn how to teach other cadets the aspects of soaring and flight. Overall, the feedback since the IDT program has started has been positive and the quality of pilot from each program has improved.
To view more photos, go to Galleries > Airmanship > Soaring or click on the link below.