Air-Wake Prediction Based Air-Vehicle Recovery Aids

This report demonstrates the capability of the forward prediction of the properties of the arriving wind at a vessel for time intervals adequate to significantly aid in the recovery of a wide range of air vehicles onto vessels. For craft with flight decks sited in the fore part of the vessel it is adequate to simply predict the arriving wind. For the more difficult task of recovery to stern areas behind superstructure it is also necessary to predict either the explicit properties of the turbulent air-wake or else to predict some quality measure for the aid of recovery under the prevailing conditions. The approach is able to relate the trends in the short-term statistical properties of fluctuating airflow over the flight deck to the trends in the predicted arriving wind.

Ground manoeuvres of aircrafts in narrow spaces by all-wheel-steering

The present analysis deals with the ground taxiing of aircrafts and considers, in particular, their turning at rather low speed with very small path radii among obstacles that may be very close to each other, for example inside the hangars or on the flight decks of the aircraft carriers where other planes stand stationary. To succeed in this operation, it is crucial to optimize the path and avoid dangerous collisions or, more generally, the interference in the ground projection between the obstacles and the band enclosing all the point trajectories of the plane. The essential innovation here proposed for this purpose consists in making all the wheels of the undercarriage steerable, assuming electrically motorized struts, and in searching for the best correlation among the steering angles in order to optimize the path. The geometrical and dynamical nonlinearities due to the relatively large steering angles, to the changes of the cornering stiffness with the vertical loads on the wheels and to the inertial and the aerodynamic forces will be included in the analysis. The rollover critical speeds will be calculated on varying the path radius.

Flight Decks and Isolettes: High-Reliability Organizing (HRO) as Pragmatic Leadership Principles during Pandemic COVID-19

The COVID-19 crisis has created a physical environment where neonatologists and neonatal staff face exposure to an easily transmissible, potentially fatal infection in the course of their duties. Leaders cannot reject an assignment, such as a resuscitation of a newborn, because of risk. As in military operations, safety and capability cannot be separated from neonatal operations. Leadership models developed in stable environments do not fully translate to dynamic, uncertain situations where the leader and subordinates personally face threats; the type of environment from which the High-Reliability Organization (HRO) emerged. There must be a shift from the increasingly abstract, academic, and normative representation of HRO leadership to its original, more pragmatic frame that iteratively supports engagement. The purpose of this paper is to present HRO as leadership principles, bridging the gap between abstract theory and practice by bringing attention to HRO as a scientifically supported pragmatic leadership stance.

Absence of Pilot Monitoring Affects Scanning Behavior of Pilot Flying: Implications for the Design of Single-Pilot Cockpits

Objective This study examines whether the pilot flying’s (PF) scanning behavior is affected by the absence of the pilot monitoring (PM) and aims at deriving implications for the design of single-pilot cockpits for commercial aviation. Background Due to technological progress, a crew reduction from two-crew to single-pilot operations (SPO) might be feasible. This requires a redesign of the cockpit to support the pilot adequately, especially during high workload phases such as approach and landing. In these phases, the continuous scanning of flight parameters is of particular importance. Method Experienced pilots flew various approach and landing scenarios with or without the support of the PM in a fixed-base Airbus A320 simulator. A within-subject design was used and eye-tracking data were collected to analyze scanning behavior. Results The results confirm that the absence of the PM affects the PF’s scanning behavior. Participants spent significantly more time scanning secondary instruments at the expense of primary instruments when flying alone. Moreover, the frequency of transitions between the cockpit instruments and the external view increased while mean dwell durations on the external view decreased. Conclusion The findings suggest that the PM supports the PF to achieve efficient scanning behavior. Information should be presented differently in commercial SPO to compensate for the PM’s absence and to avoid visual overload. Application This research will help inform the design of commercial SPO flight decks providing adequate support for the pilot particularly in terms of efficient scanning behavior.