Focus on the Positive

Today’s high-fidelity flight simulators are vital, but they require sustained investment to keep pace with capability upgrades to the aircraft that they represent, Maj. Gen. Marke Gibson, operations specialist on the Air Staff, said Tuesday. “As soon as those two begin to break apart, you encounter what we call ‘negative training,'” Gibson told the House Armed Services Committee’s readiness panel during a hearing on the US military’s use of modeling and simulation. “In other words,” he continued, “the pilots and the operators know what it is like in the actual aircraft and if they go to something that doesn’t accurately replicate that, that becomes problematic.” Negative training may also surface if security classifications protecting the design features of advanced systems, like a fifth generation fighter, degrade simulator performance, he said in his written statement. (Gibson prepared remarks)