Citation

Yesavage JA, Taylor JL, Mumenthaler MS, Noda A, O'Hara R. J. Am. Geriatr. Soc. 1999; 47(7): 819-823.

Affiliation

Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care System, Palo Alto, California, USA. yesavage@stanford.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 1999, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

10404925

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To determine the relationship between age and aviator performance on a flight simulator. DESIGN: A cross-sectional observational study. PARTICIPANTS: The sample consisted of 100 aviators aged 50 to 69 (mean = 58). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Pilots were tested on a Frasca 141 flight simulator (Urbana, IL), linked to a UNIX-based IRIS 4D computer (Silicon Graphics, Mountain View, CA), which both generated graphics of the environment in which the pilots flew and collected data concerning the aircraft's flight conditions. RESULTS: We found that increased age was significantly associated with decreased aviator performance on a flight simulator. CONCLUSIONS: Although there was a significant relationship between increased age and decreased aviator performance, age explained 22% or less of the variance of performance on different flight tasks; hence, other factors are also important in explaining the performance of older pilots.

Language: en