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Home | Update | Latest Issue | Gallery | FR Profile | Datafiles | FR 5/97 HIGH-TECH COCKPITS: DO THEY REALLY HELP THE PILOT? By Norbert Burgner A maximum degree of situational awareness in flight operations - reality or just wishful thinking? What's the pilot's role today facing the continuously increasing automation of modern air traffic? Is the application of more and more complex avionics really supporting the pilots, or are the flight crews being pushed from their task as operators into a position of mere system organizers and supervisors? In the scope of a study concerning the "glass cockpit and new technologies", the German Airline Pilot Association (Vereinigung Cockpit, VC) in cooperation with work and product analyst Professor Holger H. Ebert sruveyed the pilot community about their opinion on the man-machine interface. The result, once again, revealed critical findings. Asked about the efficiency of their man-machine communication, 67 percent of the pilots who participated in the survey answered that they are "occasionally" overloaded with their visual perception. While 31 percent of the pilots who fly airliners with conventional cockpits (Boeing 737-200, 747-200, ATR 42/72) said that they would like a higher usage of sensations, this number increases to 42 percent among the cockpit crews of airliners equipped with a "glass cockpit I" (Airbus A300/310, Boeing 737-300 and others). 65 percent of the "users" of "glass cockpit II" aircraft (Airbus A320/321, A330/340) asked for an improvement in this area. 71 percent of the pilots evaluate acoustical information as being an ideal supplementing sensual input, every second pilot asked for further sensual information, such as the sense of touch. Remarkably, the evaluation of the current sensual presentations of the three different cockpit designs did not show large differences. This was a surprise since it was expected that the newest glass cockpits, which are based on the newest technology and concepts, would be convincing in this aspect. According to the study, the sensual feed-back of certain system operations has an important role for the pilot's situational awareness in the man-machine interface. Specific questions about this topic revealed that especially the sensual requirements of "glass cockpit II" users have not been considered enough. Has high-tech become an end in itself? The results of the survey's topics "knowledge and training" is alarming, also: 31 percent of the pilots evaluated the quality of the type rating training as being below satisfactory. Furthermore, 46 percent of the survey participants said the same about the quantity of knowledge that is mediated during the type rating. Alarmingly, 56 percent of the pilots of airliners with second generation glass cockpits considered the content of the material mediated in training as unsatisfactory, 66 percent of this group of cockpit crews even assessed the quantity of the material as being below satisfactory grade. Obviously, the legitimate expectation of the pilots that a progress in technology would be accompanied by a corresponding increase in training material was not complied with. 59 percent of Boeing pilots (conventional and glass cockpit I) and 90 percent of Airbus crews (glass I and II) judged the contents of their aircraft's technical documentation as being unsatisfactory. This is an obvious discrepancy between expectation and reality. The majority of the crews considered their own knowledge about the technical documentation of their respective aircraft as being satisfactory. Still, none of them found their knowledge as being ideal. Asked about their knowledge concerning the technical systems of their aircraft, 41 percent of the pilots stated it to be below satisfactory. 80 percent of the glass cockpit pilots admitted to occasionally asking themselves "What is the aircraft doing now?". This comes down to a partial loss of situational awareness, the pilot is out of the loop. According to the authors of the study, the flight crew, in that very moment, has lost its processes identity. This is further highlighted by 60 percent of the pilots admitting that once in a while they have difficulties following the automated procedures of the aircraft systems. The study comes to the conclusion that the current definition of the pilot's role and their competence has not kept up with the development of new aircraft and new cockpit technologies: "The incorporation of the user must be the principle in the development of future aircraft. The current procedures in aircraft manufacture are by far not up to the requirements." From page 58 of FLUG REVUE 5/97 Home | Update | Latest Issue | Gallery | FR Profile | Datafiles | FR 5/97 Copyright 1997 by Motor-Presse Stuttgart. All rights reserved. Last updated March 30, 1997