When you think of virtual reality combat simulations, I expect you’ll picture video games. A fully immersive version of Call of Duty, perhaps? Solitary folk in their high-backed chairs barking orders from beneath their VR headsets?
But we’re not talking fun and games here. We’re talking about the Royal Navy’s cutting-edge training programme.
You had to be there...
In January 2021, Wired published a behind-the-scenes article exploring the Navy’s futuristic training centre. It begins:
It’s 2.00am over the icy North Sea and the Merlin Mk2 crew are in desperate straits. The aircraft is fast running out of fuel above the treacherous waters. They have two options: either land the helicopter back on the ship deck as it rolls among the violent sea, or plummet into the icy depths. With next-to-no-visibility and seconds ticking away, the crew has little choice but to hand their lives over to the pilot and pray they make it home.
And I thought my job was stressful! Thankfully, it’s just a simulation:
At the Royal Naval Air Stations of Culdrose and Yeovilton, this is the sort of scenario played out on repeat for crew members. Rather than ship decks and ocean waters, students are honing their abilities in virtual reality, within futuristic moving domes controlled by their instructors. Life-and-death situations from engine failure to bad weather are all reproduced with photo-realistic effects.
It’s state-of-the-art stuff, and they’re just getting started. At RNAS Culdrose, they are also utilising VR to train winchmen in otherwise impossible-to-recreate scenarios.
Paul McBride, a VR developer for the programme, told Wired that he believes “the future of Navy training will include 60 students wearing VR headsets, being taught by an instructor appearing as an avatar in an aircraft carrier-sized hangar in real time.”
It goes to show how virtual reality has advanced in recent years. It is no longer a gimmick, but an invaluable teaching tool with endless possibilities. Perhaps nervous drivers could get some virtual miles on the clock ahead of their driving test, lifeboat crews could play out complicated rescue scenarios, and medical students could practise their stitches.
Where flying is concerned, VR may soon have the edge over traditional flight training. Danish company, VR Pilot, explain:
The overall advantage of using VR is the feeling of 'being there' or immersion. The level of immersion is determined by the sophistication level of the VR setup. An immersive VR experience requires a high screen frame rate, high resolution displays, a low system latency and sophisticated graphics. The immersion level may be increased by adding 3D audio (binaural audio), controllers for interaction and haptic (touch) feedback. If the VR experience is realistic enough, the user’s mind can be tricked into believing the virtual world is real.
I’ve seen enough videos of VR users diving head first into their TV screens to convince me that minds can, indeed, be tricked.
Landing the lesson
VR Pilot point to Edgar Dale’s Cone of Experience as another reason why “doing” is so important. According to Dale’s research, people generally remember only 10% of what they read, but 90% of what they do as they perform a task.
A crucial part of effective learning is knowledge retention – the capacity to recall what has been learned over time. This is particularly critical for flight crews, who need to memorise a wide array of checklists, protocols, and regulations. Research indicates that learning enhanced with virtual reality (VR) can improve retention by as much as 400%, making study time significantly more productive. Stronger retention translates to less need for retraining and ultimately results in pilots who have a better grasp of emergency procedures.
Another core area of flight training pertains to depth perception. Thankfully, VR is on hand to help in that regard too…
[The ability to judge distances] is difficult to train in traditional simulators, where there is no depth perception. This is because the screen, onto which the outside world is projected, is placed at a fixed distance from the eyes of the student pilot, and every object projected onto the screens would appear to be at the same distance from the pilot – whether it’s the runway 5 meters from the pilot or a tower 5 kilometers from the pilot.
In contrast, Virtual Reality (VR) goggles use stereoscopic displays that show two slightly different images of the same scene, mimicking the way our eyes perceive depth and distance in the real world. This allows VR to provide a realistic sense of depth to help pilots accurately judge altitude during critical moments, such as hovering a helicopter a few feet above the tarmac.
Beyond combat: VR’s role in PTSD treatment
Virtual reality has diverse applications in military settings, extending far beyond training environments and vehicle simulations. It is also being explored as a therapeutic tool for treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
In 2019, the BBC covered a pioneering study involving RAF veteran Matt Neve and 41 other veterans. They participated in a two-year research project, the first of its kind in the UK, conducted by the University of Cardiff and Vale University Health Board (CVUHB) to assess VR’s effectiveness in PTSD treatment for veterans.
3MDR (Modular Motion-assisted Memory Desensitization and Reconsolidation), a treatment led by Professor Jon Bisson, combines effective elements from established therapies like Virtual Reality Exposure (VRE) and Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR), adding physical movement via treadmill use.
Developed in the Netherlands, this approach immerses patients in a controlled yet emotionally evocative setting, using self-chosen deployment images, music, and emotional cues to help them face previously avoided memories.
The Traumatic Stress Research Group notes:
Participants walk a repetitive cycle whilst talking and viewing their images. This is an important distinction between 3MDR and traditional trauma focused techniques as patients learn to move through their avoidance and face their fears by, literally, approaching their traumatic memories.
Two-thirds of the participants reported an average improvement in their symptoms of 37%. What's more, Neve shared with the BBC that 3MDR has had the “biggest impact” on his life since starting the treatment.
The hope is the programme can be expanded to treat other PTSD patients in the future – not just military personnel – and as the technology improves, so too could the results. Virtual reality may just prove to be a real-world lifesaver.
Comments