Why not headsets

Aircrew wear platform-specific headgear, and wearing it correctly is part of the training.

Helmets, masks and mounted optics cannot take a training headset over them, and removing them removes part of the training objective. That is not a preference. It is a disqualification, and it applies across a large and well-funded segment.

And then everything else

• One shared correct picture that a team looks at together, rather than fifteen people each describing what they see.
• Real consoles and mockups inside the volume, touched with real hands.
• An instructor who can see what the student’s body is doing.
• No fit, hygiene or donning time for a class of fifteen.
• One calibrated display to certify, instead of fifteen sets of optics.
• No XR fatigue, so the length of a session is set by the syllabus rather than by how long a headset can be worn.

Where a headset is the better tool

For a single trainee at a single station, for maintenance procedures requiring close hand work at arbitrary orientations with 20–30 minutes per training session, and anywhere the budget or the floor area rules out a fixed installation, a headset is the right answer and we will say so. We would rather tell you that in the first conversation than in the third.