Vertical situation awareness and pilot performance

Abstract. The paper examines general aviation (GA) pilot risk perception and decision-making via an online vignette study. GA is a high-risk area of aviation with many GA accidents considered to be the result of pilot performance rather than mechanical failure. Pilots ( n = 101) were presented with 12 go/no-go take-off decision scenarios across four risk categories (compromised performance, environment, faulty equipment, missing equipment). Scenarios depicting a missing checklist, missing sunglasses, and stress were considered less risky than illness, a faulty airspeed indicator (ASI), and a broken seatbelt. Pilots weighed their take-off decisions against mitigating factors, protective measures, and flight parameters. Situation awareness training and a focus on pre-flight planning may help to enhance flight safety within this group.

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Flying solo: General aviation pilot risk perception and decision-making

10.31234/osf.io/7buv4 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Amy Irwin ◽

Nejc Sedlar ◽

Oliver Hamlet

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Risk Perception ◽

Situation Awareness ◽

General Aviation ◽

Pilot Performance ◽

Risk Area ◽

Protective Measures ◽

High Risk Area ◽

Mitigating Factors ◽

Flight Parameters

The paper examines General Aviation (GA) pilot risk perception and decision-making via an online vignette study. GA is a high-risk area of aviation with many GA accidents considered to be the result of pilot performance rather than mechanical failure. Pilots (n = 101) were presented with 12 go/no-go take-off decision scenarios across four risk categories (compromised performance, environment, faulty equipment, missing equipment). Scenarios depicting a missing checklist, missing sunglasses and stress were considered less risky than illness, a faulty airspeed indicator (ASI) and a broken seatbelt. Pilots weighed their take-off decisions against mitigating factors, protective measures and flight parameters. Situation awareness training and a focus on pre-flight planning may help to enhance flight safety within this group.

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Applying Virtual Environment Technology to the Design of Fighter Aircraft Cockpits: Pilot Performance and Situation Awareness in a Simulated Air Combat Task

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting ◽

10.1177/154193129403800123 ◽

1994 ◽

Vol 38 (1) ◽

pp. 115-118 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Lawrence J. Hettinger ◽

W. Todd Nelson ◽

Michael W. Haas

Keyword(s):

Virtual Environment ◽

Air Force ◽

Situation Awareness ◽

Current Experiment ◽

Pilot Performance ◽

Fighter Aircraft ◽

Us Air Force ◽

Air Combat ◽

To Receive ◽

The U.S

The use of multi-sensory displays for fighter aircraft cockpits is being investigated at the U.S. Air Force's Armstrong Laboratory as a means of enhancing pilot performance. The current experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of employing such displays on the performance of a simulated air combat task. Each of four experienced US Air Force F-16 pilots flew 12 simulated missions which required them to locate and destroy four enemy bombers whose flight path was pre-programmed. Simultaneously, two other pilots were assigned to auxiliary cockpits in the laboratory and flew enemy fighter aircraft in an attempt to intercept and shoot down the primary pilot. Therefore there were three active participants in each air combat scenario. Each pilot flew six trials using a cockpit comprised of conventional F-15 flight instruments and six trials using a modified, multi-sensory cockpit. The results indicated that pilot performance and situation awareness were generally superior with the multi-sensory cockpit as opposed to the conventional cockpit, although statistical differences between the two were at best marginally significant. Nevertheless, the results suggest that if pilots were to receive advance training with the multi-sensory cockpit their performance may exceed that in the highly overlearned conventional cockpit by even more substantial amounts.

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Effects of Virtually-Augmented Fighter Cockpit Displays on Pilot Performance, Workload, and Situation Awareness

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting ◽

10.1177/154193129604000205 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 40 (2) ◽

pp. 30-33 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Lawrence J. Hettinger ◽

Bart J. Brickman ◽

Merry M. Roe ◽

W. Todd Nelson ◽

Michael W. Haas

Keyword(s):

Air Force ◽

Situation Awareness ◽

Relevant Information ◽

The United States ◽

Pilot Performance ◽

Us Air Force ◽

Cockpit Displays ◽

Air Force Base ◽

Aircraft System ◽

Military Pilots

Virtually-augmented display concepts are being developed at the US Air Force Armstrong Laboratory's Synthesized Immersion Research Environment (SIRE) Facility at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, for use in future USAF crew stations. These displays incorporate aspects of virtual environment technology to provide users with intuitive, multisensory representations of operationally relevant information. This paper describes an evaluation that was recently conducted to contrast the effects of conventional, F-15 types of cockpit displays and virtually-augmented, multisensory cockpit displays on pilot-aircraft system performance, workload, and situation awareness in a simulated air combat task. Eighteen military pilots from the United States, France, and Great Britain served as test pilots. The results indicate a statistically significant advantage for the virtually-augmented cockpit configuration across all three classes of measures investigated. The results are discussed in terms of their relevance for the continuing evolution of advanced crew station design.

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Investigating Pilot Performance Using Mixedmodality Simulated Data Link

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting ◽

10.1177/154193120504900126 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 49 (1) ◽

pp. 118-122

Author(s):

Jeff A. Lancaster ◽

John G. Casali

Keyword(s):

Situation Awareness ◽

Mental Workload ◽

New Technology ◽

Simulated Data ◽

General Aviation ◽

Pilot Performance ◽

Data Link ◽

Communication Performance ◽

Synthesized Speech ◽

Time Required

Research exploring new technology integration into general aviation (GA) cockpits is lacking, especially that which focuses on the capabilities and limitations of the single pilot. Sixteen visual flight rules (VFR) rated pilots were evaluated for data link communication performance using a flight simulator equipped with a mixed-modality simulated data link within one of two flight conditions. Modalities included textual, synthesized speech, digitized speech, and synthesized speech/textual combination. Flight conditions included VFR (unlimited ceiling, visibility) or marginal VFR (MVFR) flight conditions (clouds 2800 feet, threemile visibility). Evaluation focused on the time required accessing, understanding, and executing data link commands. Measures to evaluate workload, situation awareness, and subjective preference were also obtained. Results indicated performance, mental workload, and situation awareness differences across data link modalities and between flight conditions. Implications for operational safety in future systems that incorporate data link for use by a single pilot are discussed.

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Using Pupillometry and Electromyography to Track Positive and Negative Affect During Flight Simulation

Aviation Psychology and Applied Human Factors ◽

10.1027/2192-0923/a000052 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

pp. 23-32 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Jennifer G. Tichon ◽

Tim Mavin ◽

Guy Wallis ◽

Troy A. W. Visser ◽

Stephan Riek

Keyword(s):

Positive Affect ◽

Cognitive Processing ◽

Situation Awareness ◽

Fixation Duration ◽

Muscle Activation ◽

Evaluation Method ◽

Objective Measure ◽

Flight Simulation ◽

Pilot Performance ◽

Saccade Velocity

Affect is a key determinant of performance, due to its influence on cognitive processing. Negative emotions such as anxiety are recognized cognitive stressors shown to degrade decision making and situation awareness. Conversely, positive affect can improve problem solving and facilitate recall. This exploratory pilot study used electromyography and pupillometry measures to track pilots’ levels of negative and positive affect while training in a flight simulator. Fixation duration and saccade rate were found to correspond reliably to pilot self-reports of anxiety. Additionally, large increases in muscle activation were also recorded when higher anxiety was reported. Decreases in positive affect correlated significantly with saccade rate, fixation duration, and mean saccade velocity. Results are discussed in terms of using psychophysiological measures to provide a continuous, objective measure of pilot affective levels as an additional evaluation method to support assessment of pilot performance in simulation training environments.

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Charting the Edges of Human Performance

MATEC Web of Conferences ◽

10.1051/matecconf/201930406007 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 304 ◽

pp. 06007

Author(s):

Barry Kirwan ◽

Matthias Wies ◽

Rebecca Charles ◽

Charles-Alban Dormoy ◽

Theodore Letouze ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Heart Rate ◽

Eye Tracking ◽

Real Time ◽

Situation Awareness ◽

Human Performance ◽

Human Machine Interface ◽

Pilot Performance ◽

Horizon 2020 ◽

Safety Programme ◽

Machine Interface

In the Horizon 2020 funded Future Sky Safety programme, the Human Performance Envelope project pushed airline pilots to the edges of their performance in real-time cockpit simulations, by increasing stress and workload, and decreasing situation awareness. The aim was to find out how such factors interact, and to detect the edges of human performance where some form of automation support should be employed to ensure safe continued flight. A battery of measures was used, from behavioural to physiological (e.g. heart rate, eye tracking and pupil dilation), to monitoring pilot performance in real time. Several measures – e.g. heart rate, heart rate variability, eye tracking, cognitive walkthrough, and Human Machine Interface (HMI) usability analysis – proved to be useful and relatively robust in detecting performance degradation, and determining where changes in information presentation are required to better support pilot performance in challenging situations. These results led to proposed changes in a prototype future cockpit human-machine interface, which were subsequently validated in a final simulation. The results also informed the development of a ‘Smart-Vest’ that can be worn by pilots to monitor a range of signals linked to performance.

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Situation Awareness Adaptive Alerting in an Aircraft Cockpit: A Simulator Study

10.31224/osf.io/9gmnv ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Simon Schwerd ◽

Axel Schulte

Keyword(s):

Change Detection ◽

Situation Awareness ◽

Subjective Rating ◽

Flight Crew ◽

Pilot Performance ◽

Long Time ◽

Adaptive Support ◽

Flight Deck ◽

Random Times ◽

Change Detection Performance

The goal of this study was to develop an automated cockpit support system that is adaptive to the flight crew’s situation awareness (SA) estimated by online gaze analysis. Flight crew errors are often attributed to low SA. Online measurement of SA could be used to automatically guide the user’s attention for the sake of fewer errors and better performance.An eye-tracking based measure for SA was developed and used for the adaptive generation of alerts in a flight simulator. In an experiment, ten certified pilots conducted two trials with no and adaptive alerting. The experimental task involved tracking of flight parameters which were partially disturbed or changed at random times. Our online estimation of SA showed a strong correlation with observed pilot performance. With adaptive alerts, the average performance increased in those experimental tasks, where a situational change could not be predicted by participants. Also, adaptive alerts improved change detection and reduced the number of outliers, where a change was not noticed for an exceptionally long time. However, subjective rating was poor due to low transparency and false positives. SA-adaptive support can improve change detection performance in typical tasks on the flight deck. For a greater acceptance, pilots should be trained to understand the adaption policy.

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