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.