What other applications can you find in the literature or think of for this technology?

Learning by doing encourages active engagement with the available equipment or material and makes you remember what you do a theory developed by John Dewey (1938) and recently the term experiential learning by David Kold (1984), which terms as the construction of knowledge as the process of understanding and learning occurs through transformation of experience whereby the ability results from the combination of grasping and transforming experience. As virtual reality (VR) takes a more significant role in experiential learning, VR provides students with real construction safely experience through learning by doing. VR place the learner into a customizable, believable, and controllable virtual environment. VR improves the safety education process and motivates students to obtain safety knowledge and practical skills. Reading the VR flight training in Lufthansa airlines brought back memories of working for Sri Lankan airlines for 15 years which was my first job. I agree that several parts of training need to be conducted frequently for flight attendants, and I am glad that this training could be done now on VR. I also see a need for pilot training, ground handling, security, flight engineering within the aircraft hangar could be other essential needs in the future.

There are already game-based flight simulators off the shelf with virtual reality (VR) features. According to the articles enhanced pilot training with VR, the commercial flight training device provider has already started developing flight simulators that had VR. John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Science in the University of North Dakota has a lab with a 360-degree full-cockpit view for training sessions. This lab training is for basic stick and rubber skills and improves students’ situational awareness. Airbus has announced the XR technologies for the Airbus virtual flight trainer that places the pilots into a virtual cockpit for training. KLM users VR for flight deck for pilot training.

Working for the UN and been involved in installing satellite dishes (VSAT) for field locations (e.g., Bangladesh and Myanmar) to provide internet access through satellite commutation where a similar extent of training is required. My subsequent research was to check whether virtual reality could be a possibility for satellite installation. To my surprise, VR training is conducted already in the Dutch armed forces trained as multilayer VR which allows multi-user application up to 16 simultaneous users within the VR application. 

Another training VR technology is training firefighters that flight virtual fires. Firefighting is crucial and dangerous, but the training can be done in a safe environment without flames with VR. With many hazardous risks faced by firefighters, there are opportunities for immersive VR to contribute to the training.

References

Engelbrecht, H., & Hoermann, S. (2021). Human Factors Research in Immersive Virtual Reality Firefighter Training: A Systematic Review. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 2, 80. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C44&q=Human+Factors+Research+in+Immersive+Virtual+Reality+Firefighter+Training%3A+A+Systematic+Review&btnG=

Le, Q. T., Pedro, A., & Park, C. S. (2015). A social virtual reality based construction safety education system for experiential learning. Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems, 79(3), 487-506. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10846-014-0112-z

Muthaiyan, A., & Cecil, J. (2008). A virtual environment for satellite assembly. Computer-Aided Design and Applications, 5(1-4), 526-538. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3722/cadaps.2008.526-538