Does Deliberately Going Beyond Alarms in Stall Recovery Exercises Lead to Negative Training?

Abstract

Abstract: We investigated whether deliberately going beyond alarms during aerodynamic stall recovery exercises may result in negative training. Two groups of 20 airline pilots received stall recovery training in a moving-base simulator. The “delayed-response” group induced the stall themselves. The “immediate-response” group was presented with paused situations and had to recover immediately after unpausing. In a surprising transfer test, the pilots in the delayed-response group showed less aggressive unloading, and experienced significantly more time pressure compared to the pilots in the immediate-response group. In a stall cue recognition test, the delayed-response group performed nearly significantly better. We conclude that experiencing the progression of an aerodynamic stall during training has positive effects on pilot performance, even if this requires unprocedural behavior.