VIRTUAL REALITY TECHNOLOGIES IN PROFESSIONAL FORMATION AND SELF-IDENTIFICATION OF FUTURE PILOTS
One of the areas of development of vocational education is the application in the educational practice of virtual reality, especially it is significant in the training of pilots, where the use of these technologies allows cadets already at junior courses to feel themselves as specialists involved in solving professional tasks. The article reveals the features of virtual reality modeling used in training future pilots; the experience of the creative group of cadets engaged in the scientific section of the problem of creating virtual reality with specified characteristics is summarized. The development they have created is an aircraft simulator for training flight practice, based on the use of virtual reality technologies. The simulator proposed by the young researchers allows to study the general equipment of the cockpit of the aircraft, the location of the devices, to work virtually with the aircraft's control bodies, to solve problems in an environment close to reality. The results of experimental work are presented, showing that modern digital technologies increase the interest of cadets in their chosen profession, the level of competence formation and contribute to the increase in the level of self-identification.