Embry Riddle Aeronautical University has added a new Mentor Advanced Aircraft Training Device from Frasca at its High-Altitude Lab at its Daytona Beach campus.
The Mentor, which is approved by the FAA, replicates the cockpit of a Cessna 172 aircraft equipped with Garmin G-1000 integrated avionics and a Truvision visual system, the platform used in Embry-Riddle’s flight training program.
The Mentor has a sophisticated data recording package that measures and graphically displays a pilot’s performance and deviations while flying. Embry-Riddle researchers will use the new device to measure performance and decision-making by pilots training in a hypoxic environment. Investigators have already completed one preliminary study of pilot performance at altitudes where hypoxia can affect behavior. With about 1,200 students at the campus preparing to be professional pilots, researchers have a sizeable pool of subjects to study.
Embry Riddle created its high-altitude normobaric lab, the nation’s first, in 2009 to teach pilots how to recognize and recover from hypoxia, a shortage of oxygen in the brain and blood. In the normobaric enclosure, a hypoxic environment is created by air machines that extract oxygen from the air, instead of pumps that reduce air pressure.
For more information: ERAU.edu or 386-226-6850.
