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February 28,  2003

By 2nd Lt. Tiffany Payette
92nd Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs

FAIRCHILD AIR FORCE BASE, Wash. (AMCNS) -- size="2">The 336th Training Support Squadron's newly completed computer-based training laboratory is up and running now for students to complete lessons and tests.

Computer-based training offers many benefits to survival school students.

The goal of CBT is to maximize student interaction between the computer and the material being presented by allowing students to control their learning process and work at their own pace, according to Michael Young, training technology flight chief, 336th TRSS.

Students are exposed to several types of visual stimuli other than just text, such as survival simulations of walking through a jungle, desert, ice cap or any of the other global environments.

Using only the mouse, students can communicate with recovery assets, manipulate radio controls and guide aircraft to specific locations. The survival applications using CBT are endless. Survival scenario development is only limited by CBT developers' imagination, according to Young.

"CBT is saving the Air Force millions in TDY school costs," Young said. "Not only does CBT help the Air Force in cost savings, but the students retain approximately 30 percent more of the courseware than sitting in the traditional classroom."

The initial CBT development effort consists of converting all of the academic lessons for Basic Combat Survival Course to CBT.

The lessons will be administered here for validation. If the course is given to students prior to attending survival school here, then the CBT will be exported to the students via CD-ROM, Internet or satellite.

"Once the 336th TRSS has completed the conversion, they plan to develop CBT for the academics portions of arctic survival, water survival ejection, water-survival ditching and survival instructor course," said Young.

Computer-based training has been a part of the Air Force training delivery system since about 1985, primarily in the technical training area, but is rapidly becoming a significant method of delivery within flying training, according to Young.