Tactical vs. Strategic Behavior: General Aviation Piloting in Convective Weather Scenarios

Author(s):  
Kara A. Latorella ◽  
James P. Chamberlain

We commonly describe environments and behavioral responses to environmental conditions as “tactical” and “strategic.” However theoretical research defining relevant environmental characteristics is rare, as are empirical investigations that would inform such theory. This paper discusses General Aviation (GA) pilots' descriptions of tactical/strategic conditions with respect to weather flying, and evaluates their ratings along a tactical/strategic scale in response to real convective weather scenarios experienced during a flight experiment with different weather information cues. Perceived risk was significantly associated with ratings for all experimental conditions. In addition, environmental characteristics were found to be predictive of ratings for Traditional IMC (instrument meteorological conditions), i.e., aural weather information only, and Traditional VMC (visual meteorological conditions), i.e., aural information and an external view. The paper also presents subjects' comments regarding use of Graphical Weather Information Systems (GWISs) to support tactical and strategic weather flying decisions and concludes with implications for the design and use of GWISs.

Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 341
Author(s):  
Carolina Rodriguez-Paras ◽  
Johnathan T. McKenzie ◽  
Pasakorn Choterungruengkorn ◽  
Thomas K. Ferris

Despite the increasing availability of technologies that provide access to aviation weather information in the cockpit, weather remains a prominent contributor to general aviation (GA) accidents. Pilots fail to detect the presence of new weather information, misinterpret it, or otherwise fail to act appropriately on it. When cognitive demands imposed by concurrent flight tasks are high, the risks increase for each of these failure modes. Previous research shows how introducing vibrotactile cues can help ease or redistribute some of these demands, but there is untapped potential in exploring how vibratory cues can facilitate “interruption management”, i.e., fitting the processing of available weather information into flight task workflow. In the current study, GA pilots flew a mountainous terrain scenario in a flight training device while receiving, processing, and acting on various weather information messages that were displayed visually, in graphical and text formats, on an experimental weather display. Half of the participants additionally received vibrotactile cues via a connected smartwatch with patterns that conveyed the “severity” of the message, allowing pilots to make informed decisions about when to fully attend to and process the message. Results indicate that weather messages were acknowledged more often and faster when accompanied by the vibrotactile cues, but the time after acknowledgment to fully process the messages was not significantly affected by vibrotactile cuing, nor was overall situation awareness. These findings illustrate that severity-encoded vibrotactile cues can support pilot awareness of updated weather as well as task management in processing weather messages while managing concurrent flight demands.


Author(s):  
Janelle Viera O'Brien ◽  
Christopher D. Wickens

In any Free Flight system, pilots must have displays which effectively depict traffic and weather information as more and more responsibility for separation from such hazards transfers from air traffic controllers to pilots. This research effort seeks to address the issues of dimensionality (3D versus 2D coplanar displays) and data base integration (separation or integration of traffic and weather information within displays). Seventeen general aviation flight instructors flew a series of en route trials with four display types in which dimensionality, data base integration, and hazard geometries were manipulated. Analysis of the data revealed that the 2D displays resulted in a smaller percentage of conflicts with traffic and weather hazards. The results also suggested that displays in which traffic and weather were integrated resulted in fewer hazard conflicts for trials in which both hazard types were critical to maneuver selection. Maneuver strategy was also found to vary by scenario geometry.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 79-87
Author(s):  
Meredith Carroll ◽  
Paige Sanchez ◽  
Donna Wilt

Abstract. The purpose of this study was to examine how pilots respond to conflicting information on the flight deck. In this study, 108 airline, corporate, and general aviation pilots completed an online questionnaire reporting weather, traffic, and navigation information conflicts experienced on the flight deck, including which information sources they trusted and acted on. Results indicated that weather information conflicts are most commonly experienced, and typically between a certified source in the panel and an uncertified electronic flight bag application. Most participants (a) trusted certified systems due to their accuracy, reliability, recency, and knowledge about the source, and (2) acted on the certified system due to trust, being trained and required to use it, and its indicating a more hazardous situation.


Author(s):  
Jayde King ◽  
Yolanda Ortiz ◽  
Beth Blickensderfer ◽  
Emalee Christy

General Aviation (GA) weather related accidents have steadily remained the most fatal accidents and incidents in the GA flight community. The majority of these accidents involve low-experienced Visual Flight Rule (VFR) pilots, inadvertently encountering Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC). Previous research indicates, poor inflight weather avoidance could stem from insufficient preflight weather planning. Further investigation reveals, pilots’ face many challenges during the preflight planning process, including: poor weather product interpretation/ usability, decision making biases and errors, and inadequate aviation weather experience. However, with new technology on the rise, a preflight decision support tool may help guide novice pilots through the preflight process successfully. This paper will discuss the challenges novice pilots encounter during the preflight process and offer recommendations for applying a preflight decision support tool as a solution.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (24) ◽  
pp. 10553
Author(s):  
Zhe Zheng ◽  
Wenbin Wei ◽  
Bo Zou ◽  
Minghua Hu

Flight departure delays cost airlines and airports millions of dollars and become a systematic problem. The on-time performance at an airport is connected to and easily affected by delay propagation from previous operations of flights using the airport. In this paper, we employ both Ordinary Least Square (OLS) and quantile regressions to investigate the impact of various influencing factors on flight departure delay. By using historical flight records and weather information, the impacts of delay propagation-related and other factors are quantified to study the correlations between the explanatory and response variables. Three variables, including previous arrival delay, turnaround buffer time, and the first order of a day, are used to examine the propagation effects. We find that aircraft type, flying on a weekday, and being the first flight of a day have significant impacts on short departure delays. Ground buffer is conducive to mitigating delay propagation. For long delays, however, ground buffer cannot work in an efficient way, and the previous arrival effect is more important. Convective weather and aircraft type are the crucial factors in this situation. Interestingly, flying on a weekday suddenly becomes one of the main components under extreme delays. Meanwhile, propagated delay and airport congestion remain significantly impactful on the on-time performance.


2017 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qijun Xie ◽  
Wei Song ◽  
Xiaobao Peng ◽  
Muhammad Shabbir

Purpose The present research aims to identify determinants for citizen’ behavioural adoption of e-government, explore relationships among these variables and investigate whether the proposed model can provide a more comprehensive manner to understand the adoption of e-government. Design/methodology/approach First, a survey is administered to collect data, then the Cronbach’s alpha is assessed for internal consistency of measurement scales; second, confirmatory factor analysis is conducted to evaluate the measurement model; finally, a structural equation model is used to test the proposed hypotheses and explore the determinants of e-government adoption. Findings Results indicate that the proposed model is a stable model with powerful explanatory of variation. In addition, some new relationships in the e-government context are found, whose disposition to trust has positive effect on social norms, whereas perceived risk negatively influences perceived behaviour control. Moreover, other key dominants have been investigated. Originality/value The findings have enabled us to better understand factors affecting intention and also provided a solid theoretical research model for future study.


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