Using multimodal technologies to enhance aviation maintenance inspection training

Recent collaborative efforts between Greenville Technical College's Aviation Maintenance Technology (Greenville, South Carolina, USA) training facility and Clemson University (Clemson, South Carolina, USA) have lead to significant improvements in Aviation Maintenance Technician training through the use of advanced computer technology. Such applications included: 2.5D and 3D virtual environments of a large-bodied aircraft cargobay with interaction modalities ranging from fully immersive (using a head-mounted display and 6 degrees-of-freedom mouse) to semi-immersive (using a spatially-tracked suspended, touch-sensitive window display) to non-immersive (using a basic desktop computer and mouse); and 3D virtual environments of turbine engine blades where nondestructive inspection methods (e.g. borescoping) Could be practiced. This paper discusses the integration of these technologies into an existing educational curriculum and provides insight as to how such programs might be implemented and evaluated.