Cockpit Crew Research Articles

The Aircraft Crash at Gottrora: Experiences of the Cockpit Crew

This article deals with an aircraft accident in which the two engines lost their power immediately after takeoff and the pilots succeeded in landing the aircraft safely with the 129 people on board. The pilots have been interviewed concerning the human-machine interaction, the task allocation, and their reactions. The theoretical background relates to Reason's (1990) theory on human errors as well as to Wicken's (1994) analysis of automation-induced problems. The instruments did not give proper decision support lo the pilots in the emergency situation and research areas are therefore suggested to deal with the digital versus analog presentation as well as the priority order of information in emergencies.

A Study of Life Expectancy for a Sample of Retired Airline Pilots

There is a popular belief in the aviation industry that retired pilots die at a younger age than their counterparts in the general population. If this is true, research into factors associated with this career would be of interest to the FAA as indicators of possible health factors to be monitored in the pilot population. A sample of 1494 pilots who retired at age 60 from a major U.S. airline between the study dates of April 1968 to July 1993 were surveyed. The Life Table Method was chosen as the most suitable approach to analyze the pattern of mortality for this data set. Comparisons were made with the U.S. general population of 60 year-old white males in 1980. A difference in life expectancy of more than 5 years longer was found for our sample of retired airline pilots. Half of the pilots in this sample retiring at age 60 were expected to live past 83.8 years of age, compared to 77.4 years for the general population of 60 year-old white males in 1980. The authors concluded that the question of lowered life expectancy for airline cockpit crews was not supported by the results of these data.

New Developments in Aerospace Guidance and Control: Knowledge-Based Pilot Assistance

Summary New developments In aerospace guidance and control are focussed to a great extent on the functional system enhancement through knowledge processing. In particular, the main traits of knowledge-based pilot assistance and the state of the art In this field will be adressed with this paper. Knowledge-based pilot assistance provides the capacity of autonomous support functions for situation assessment, including pilot action and intent monitoring, planning and lower level service functions. The assistance becomes effective only, if a comprehensive dynamic model of the human cockpit crew is incorporated in the system design. For illustration purposes, the German development of a cockpit assistant system for instrument flight operation is presented as a representative example.

The Use of Low-Cost Microcomputers as Medium-Fidelity Simulators for Prototype Development, Training and Research

Research time in state-of-the-art flight simulators is in heavy demand. The demand is even more acute when future aircraft and future cockpit systems are the targets of the investigation. Configuring the simulator properly and then training pilots to function in that configuration are substantial time drains. We believe that we have solved many of the problems associated with limiting the cockpit crew station designs to optimal configurations before committing simulator resources to further investigation. Further, we have also resolved a major training requirement in a way that we believe will minimize the need for insimulator training time.

Self-Separation in Terminal Areas Using CDTI

The Langley Research Center is participating in a joint NASA/FAA program designed to explore the potential benefits and liabilities of Cockpit Display of Traffic Information (CDTI) for a broad range of applications. As a part of this effort, part-task piloted simulations have been conducted to determine the effect of various display parameters and separation criteria on terminal area in-trail following using CDTI. Current experiments are evaluating cockpit procedures and crew workload aspects of self-separation tasks in a simulated full-system terminal area environment. This paper will summarize the results of the part-task terminal area experiments and discuss the current full-system simulation experiments involving active self-separation tasks.

THEBELAND OR THE MINIMUM MANNED SHIP

ABSTRACTOne of the hard facts of maritime economics is that high ship manning costs are undermining the competitiveness of Western shipping. Western ships are inexorably being driven back to the linear trades. We are also being freed to develop capital‐intensive ships, relying on extensive mechanization and automation to replace unnecessary manpower, and on careful management. One potential dividend should be greater operational safety.In Sweden the rising costs of operation have forced Brostrom's Rederi AB – with the full cooperation of labor unions and government – to develop the Thebeland class of 16 man ships. These have, of course, only a “cockpit crew,” intended simply to drive the ships from sea buoy to sea buoy. Heavy reliance is placed on port services at either end of a voyage, and on shoreside maintenance and upkeep.There are many implications to all this. Crew design must be placed by (1) bridge, cargo handling, and engine room design; (2) personnel restructuring; and (3) extensive education and training. Shipboard system integration also requires proper shipping infrastructure to support it. These countries which have a close working relationship between government, builders, owners, insurers, manufacturers, and labor stand a better chance than those which do not.It seems clear that Brostrom's new ships represent a real quantum leap into the maritime future. But one can reach a point where, in the interest of economy, too many people are displaced, and the safety of the vessel is jeopardized by the technology aboard. Do we not need to begin scientifically – not emotionally – to determine today's real economic and safe limits of crew size, and to set standards?

STAPHYLOCOCCAL FOOD POISONING ABOARD A COMMERCIAL AIRCRAFT

On Feb. 3, 1975, 196 (57%,) of 344 passengers and 1 steward aboard a commercial aircraft contracted a gastrointestinal illness characterised by nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, and diarrhæa; 142 passengers and the steward were admitted to hospital. Symptoms developed shortly after a ham and omelette breakfast had been served. An investigation strongly incriminated ham as the vehicle of the outbreak, and the source seems to have been a cook with lesions on his fingers. The attack-rate was 86% for passengers who ate the ham handled by this cook and 0% for passengers who ate ham handled exclusively by another food preparer. Before being served, the ham and omelette had been held at room temperature for 14 h and at 10°C (50°F) for 141/2 h. Specimens of stool and vomitus from ill passengers, left-over food, and the finger lesions of the cook were positive for Staphylococcus aureus of identical phage types and antibiotic sensitivities. Preformed enterotoxin was detected in the left-over ham and omelette. This outbreak re-emphasises that people with infected lesions should not handle food and that foods must be stored at temperatures low enough to inhibit the growth of bacteria. To ensure against a common foodborne illness incapacitating the entire flight crew, cockpit crew members should eat different meals prepared by different cooks.

Airplane cockpit noise levels and pilot hearing sensitivity.

Audiometric testing of 89 commercial airline pilots indicated hearing losses which increased with age and logged flight time and were greater than one would expect in the normal population. Cockpit noise level determinations were made in 18 different types of airplanes at various power settings. Hearing protective devices, for the cockpit crews, are indicated for seven types of airplanes. Fifteen types of airplanes exhibited cockpit speech interference levels of 76 db or greater during takeoff, climb, or cruise power settings.