Most of us commenting in this thread have regular access to military TOFT/OFT's.....would it work on a digital moving map/HSI combo?
AMG - My 70s experience was limited to teaching the Temporal Perception/Processing technique (time-data processing) in the applications of fix-to-fix (and all HSI related interpretation), ILS, and VFR landings. But if I understand what you're asking, I'm going to say Yes to your question. Both sound good for training purposes. As soon as you're ready, drop the map and rely on the HSI. Once your mind makes the switch, the HSI becomes your map, and you can visualize everything you need on the HSI, processing the data and turning towards your fix faster than you could program a computer with the coordinates.
Tip: When I taught the Temporal technique in T-38 simulators I would freeze the altimeter and airspeed indicator to relieve my UPT students of that distraction. If you can do that in your situation, I recommend it. All we wanted students to do was to concentrate on the
MOVEMENT of the bearing pointer/CDI and DME. Nothing else. The goal was to unhook the student from the traditional idea of using numbers, math, geometry and procedures in order to navigate (a difficult sell in a military training environment - kinda of violated the syllabus). We wanted the student to relax and fall into synchronization with the
MOTION of the instrument indicators (DME and BP). It took about 20 minutes in the hands of an experienced IP to indoctrinate an inexperienced student to the technique, and about 1 hour to perfect it. Very easy on a student without too much navigation training. So a simulation tool that allows you to eliminate aircraft control chores (and all other distractions), and concentrate solely on the
MOVEMENT of the DME/BP will accelerate training.
Tip: We found UPT students and Human Resource Lab guys (neither of which were very proficient on the HSI) very easy to train, but we had a very difficult time training many experienced IPs and fighter pilots who were already profficient with the pencil-method and other math/geometric fix-to-fix solutions, and did not need this training themselves to fly ordinary (20-40NM long) fix-to-fixes. The more their experience, the more difficult the training chore. Some IPs we gave up on. Their greater experience did not seem to permit them to completely let go of the numbers, the math, and the need to find a compass heading, so they kept an eye on the numbers as we were trying to de-program them. They still hit their fix. But we could not use them as instructors because they never grasped the beauty of the
MOTION itself, so they could not convey it to students. The other limitation that experienced navigators had was that we could not train them to do the extremely short range, back-to-back, fix-to-fix obstacle courses we set up, which required the fix to be crossed during the arc of the turn. In the Sim, we had their students pulling Gs in 60degree+ banked turns thru a course of 10 randomly issued fixes (each just a few miles apart from one another.) 3D fix-to-fixes involved fixes at different altitudes, requiring a climb or descent while in the turn enroute to the fix. Because the experienced navigators were still clinging partly to numbers, and had never seen the necessity to (or become comfortable with) relying solely on
MOVING INDICATORS, they couldn't process the data quickly enough to spin the aircraft around and hit a fix located right off their wingtip (and 2000 ft above their FL). We sometimes even moved the fix assignment while students were enroute, just to rattle them and test their proficiency. Inexperienced UPT students with about 2 hours of practice could deal with all this. Their IPs could not. So again, if you can set up a practice environment that allows you to concentrate solely on
MOVING BP/DME indicators for a while, and forget any thought process with a number assigned to it, you'll get it. Later, you can add your traditional math/geometric reasoning back into your work, no problem.
