Structural Redesign of Pilot Training and the Automated Aircraft

Flight skill loss due to the overuse of automation has become an industry concern. Aircraft accidents have been attributed to pilots' inability to manage their aircraft in manual flight resulting from unexpected changes in automation and loss of situation awareness. While aviation experts have associated these accidents to diminished stick and rudder skills from the overuse of automation, the problem may be attributed to how pilots are trained in automated aircraft. The FAA has encouraged pilots to manually fly to improve skills; however, limited opportunities for manual flight exist in the current international environment, with potentially less opportunities in the future due to NextGen compliance. A critical view of pilot training identifies how airlines could train pilots in modern day aircraft to maximize safety. The benefit of computer-based training to teach operating procedures, fixed based simulators versus level D full flight simulators, redesigning training programs to improve pilots' understanding through cognitive load theory, and the power of repetition will be addressed.

SMS, Safety Culture, and the Four Pillars of Safety Applied to Airline Pilot Training

The history of airline safety includes both FAA economic and safety measures that have grown over the years. This article provides a timeline of airline safety trends from crew resource management to safety management systems. Industry challenges are identified to include operational constraints, training challenges, economic concerns, and human factors to indicate a necessary paradigm shift from reactionary strategies toward proactive measures required by a safety culture—reporting culture, just culture, flexible culture, and learning culture. A safety culture is the foundation for safety management systems (SMS) mandated by the FAA for airline operations, to include the four pillars of safety: safety policy, safety risk management, safety assurance, and safety promotion. This article will identify how to integrate SMS, safety culture, and the four pillars of safety into the airline pilot training environment with cost effective strategies to improve safety within an SMS framework supported by a safety culture.

Decision Making in Complex Environments

Bayesian probability theory, signal detection theory, and operational decision theory are combined to understand how one can operate effectively in complex environments, which requires uncommon skill sets for performance optimization. The analytics of uncertainty in the form of Bayesian theorem applied to a moving object is presented, followed by how operational decision making is applicable to all complex environments. Large-scale dynamic systems have erratic behavior, so there is a need to effectively manage risk. Risk management needs to be addressed from the standpoint of convergent technology applications and performance modeling. The example of an airplane during takeoff shows how a risk continuum needs to be developed. An unambiguous demarcation line for low, moderate, and high risk is made and the decision analytical structure for all operational decisions is developed. Three mission-critical decisions are discussed to optimize performance: to continue or abandon the mission, the approach go-around maneuver, and the takeoff go/no-go decision.

Evaluating Psychological Aircraft Accident Reports for Differences in the Investigation of Human Factors

Analyzing accidents clearly is an important method for maintaining and improving safety in aviation. Nevertheless, evaluating these accident reports is equally important. Still, such evaluations seem to be generally neglected, especially in the military domain. The aim of the current study was to shed light on this fact by analyzing investigated human factors in military aircraft accident reports of aviation psychologists. Therefore, the authors conducted a content analysis of 42 reports of the German Armed Forces from the years 1994-2014. Confidence intervals and effect sizes indicated various differences in human factors throughout the psychological aircraft accident reports. Further, confidence intervals and effect sizes indicated differences in the corresponding areas. Thus, differences concerning human factors exist in the investigated accident reports.

An Analysis of Unmanned Aircraft Registration Effectiveness

This article describes how small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) are growing at a rapid pace. They are inexpensive and widely available for both hobbyist and commercial use. However, with this rapid growth, regulations are having a difficult time keeping pace to safely incorporate them into the United States National Airspace. Recent regulations requiring the registration of all sUAS have been overturned by the United States Courts of Appeals. This research provides a statistical analysis of the effectiveness of the registration regulation in the reduction of unauthorized and careless sUAS operation prior to being overturned by the courts. Statistical analysis including descriptive statistics and chi square hypothesis tests were used to analyze more than 3,000 reported unauthorized and careless events. The findings show a significant difference in events pre-registration and post registration.

Factors Influencing Passenger Choice in a Multiple Airport System

The purpose of this article is to examine factors that influence passengers' decision in selecting an airport in a multiple airport system (MAS). This article focuses on a MAS in China consisting of two airports that directly compete with each other in serving domestic and international passengers in the same area. A survey was conducted in the Beijing area to collect the data, and a logistic regression was used to test the effects of these factors on the passenger choice. The results indicate that airfare is the most significant determinant of Beijing passengers' airport choice, followed by flight delay.

Academic Foundations of Air Transportation Research in an Emerging Country

This article explores the progress of academic research of air transportation in an emerging country. The foundations of the air transportation field were scanned in the context of postgraduate theses. Postgraduate theses in air transportation were surveyed to illustrate what kind of themes were researched at Turkish universities and what were the tendencies of Turkish academics to study regarding air transportation. The research that spanned a 44-year period from 1972 to 2016 and was carried out by thoroughly examining the postgraduate theses that exist in the electronic database of the Turkish Council of Higher Education. In this research, 329 postgraduate theses- 58 doctorates (17.6%) and 271 masters (82.4%) - were found. The data were analyzed through a bibliometric method by using content analysis.

A Mathematical Model for Demand Distribution in An Air Transport Network

This article describes the great distance that separates Sardinia from mainland Italy has made the island – the second largest island of the Mediterranean – a marginal and remote region. Its system of ferry links for people travelling to and from Sardinia has such long journey times (8-12 hours) that it is clearly in no way a valid alternative to air transport. It was mainly on the basis of these reasons and with a view to protecting and ensuring the mobility of Sardinian residents that Public Service Obligations (PSO) were imposed on some of the main air routes starting from 2002. Our study is set against this background. It aims to resolve one of the main critical factors that distinguish the PSO network: the shortage of flights on certain routes and the concomitant over-scheduling of others. More specifically, the insufficient scheduling of weekly flights to certain airports, such as Verona and Turin, forces a number of passengers to decide not to travel at all and another part to use connecting flights to Rome/Milan airports or to travel using more than one route, via air or ground transport, with inevitably higher transport costs. The problem was addressed by using a linear scheduling model applied to a network of nodes and arcs representing, respectively, the airports and their connecting routes, and the airport of Cagliari. The decision variables identified were the number of passengers travelling on all of the arcs and the impedance measures associated with the distance travelled by the arcs, represented by the generalized cost of transport. The objective is to determine a network structure which corresponds to the distribution of passengers on the various branches capable of minimizing the total cost. This cost was considered as a useful parameter for comparing the various network scenarios which were obtained by changing the passenger load coefficient and the number of flights. Our study demonstrates that a simple intervention, aimed at the internal reallocation of the flights on the various routes, is able to guarantee categories of users (here divided into business and non-business users) greater access to air transport services. The scenario that more than others is able to improve service efficiency, granting undeniable benefits for all users without having an impact on the costs of air carriers, particularly stands out because it: • Allows access to all network airports through direct flights; • Decongests the Rome and Milan routes

A Simulation Study on Boarding and Deplaning Utilizing Two-Doors for a Narrow Body Aircraft

Boarding and deplaning processes are major and longest metrics for aircraft turnaround times. Currently, many studies have been conducted to develop more efficient strategies to reduce the boarding times. However, these studies, primarily focus on one-door boarding strategy for narrow body aircraft. Recent technological innovations provide the flexibility to add an extension to existing jet bridges making it possible to board and deplane through the front and rear doors of a narrow body aircraft. Motivated by this technological flexibility, the current study employs simulation approaches to examine, compare and contrast boarding and deplaning times utilizing one and two-door jet bridges. Different boarding and deplaning strategies are studied in this research. The results show significant time savings can be achieved for both boarding and deplaning for two-door jet bridges compared to current one-door practices.

Airplane Health Surveillance System

The Airplane Health Surveillance System is an information system which is designed to guide the pilot to make decision under uncertainty. The system is expected to detect the defect along with cause for the delay and airplane crashes which has high impact on society. The system is capable of detecting and diagnosing the defects which may be initiated during a flight. There by trigger a maintenance procedure to safeguard the airplane from possible odds by analyzing the effects caused by the defect detected. Airplane health surveillance system collects data in real-time from flying fleet and makes it available to ground operations. Ground system aims at incorporating new technical and functional features to provide best in class features for operational and strategic insight. In this work two actors are considered namely supplier (airplane manufacturer who delivers the services) and operator (operates the airplane in day to day life). This is a user friendly though has a very powerful impact on the aerospace division by eliminating the uncertain economic loss.