The aim of self-directed team learning initiatives is to provide a further level of defence against an eventuality by ensuring that air traffic controllers are aware of the sources of human fallibility, and by developing in the individual controllers and air traffic control teams the knowledge, skills and attitudes that will result in the successful management and containment of inadvertent error. To gain a deeper understanding of self-directed team learning, I investigated the role and contribution of self-directed team learning principles and strategies that were present in the South African Air Force air traffic control team-based work environment. This research study was directed by the following primary research questions: Does self-directed team learning impact on the air traffic control work environment, and what is the nature of self-directed team learning’s impact on the air traffic control work environment? Insights gained as a result of this study contributed to the body of research concerned with learning design, development, implementation and evaluation by self-directed teams as well as the air traffic control discipline. In this mixed-method study quantitative data collection was performed by means of a self-directed team learning questionnaire and a learning approach questionnaire, whereas qualitative data collection relied on individual interviews and focus group interviews. This study involved 25 South African Air Force air traffic controllers (from three operational air traffic control centres). The nature of self-directed team learning’s impact on the air traffic control work environment was illustrated by individual and collective (team) views and dynamics. The impact of air traffic control team performances was traced in terms of identified teamwork characteristics, activities, dynamics, performance measures and focus areas and reflective practices. Results of this study indicated that self-directed team learning offered opportunities to individuals and teams to influence air traffic control performances in an air traffic control work environment. A perceived positive relationship between self-directed team learning and air traffic control operational outputs could be traced. Lastly I concluded that self-directed learning by air traffic control teams had an impact on air traffic control operational outcomes, thus contributing towards a critical air traffic control goal – aviation safety. / Thesis (PhD (Currriculum Studies))--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Curriculum Studies / unrestricted

Background: Low morale is classified as a latent condition for performance variability in safety-critical environments. Morale management may assist in the control of performance variability as part of a systems approach to safety. A context-specific model for measuring and managing morale with reference to followership in a safety-critical air traffic control (ATC) environment could not be found. Purpose/Aim: The purpose of this study was to develop a model that enables the measurement and management of air traffic controller (ATCO) team morale. Research Design: An exploratory sequential mixed method design was adopted. A census approach to sampling was used to conduct 21 focus group sessions as the qualitative phase, providing the definition and drivers of morale. The Measure of Morale and its Drivers (MoMaD) survey instrument was created from qualitative data, then administered to 256 ATCOs in the quantitative phase. Statistical methods included exploratory factor analysis, correlation and regression analysis to construct the final MoMaD model. Results: A context-specific definition of morale is provided and communication management, team cohesion, leadership interaction, staff incentive, staffing level, workplace health and safety and mutual trust were found to be the drivers of morale in a safety-critical ATC environment. A single-item measure of perceived morale reflected the state of context-specific ATCO team morale more accurately than an existing generalisable multi-item measure. Conclusion: This study contributes to the body of knowledge by integrating applicable aspects of morale, followership, performance variability and organisational culture and climate in safety-critical ATC environments into a new theoretical framework. The MoMaD instrument is presented as a context-specific model for measuring and managing ATCO team morale in an ATC environment. Recommendations: Future research opportunities include the possible influence of morale as a predictor of morale in safety-critical environments and the development of a context-specific multi-item measure of morale for integration into the MoMaD model. / Business Management / D. B. L.

The first purpose of this study was to map the field of psychodiagnostic methods in the selection process for the position of Air traffic controller in selected countries in Central Europe. The second one was to see how differs the results of FEAST and psychological testing among different groups of candidates in relation to their success in training. This is a quantitative research. The method used in collecting data was the analysis of results of selected tests for individual candidates. The research was realized at 93 candidates who successfully completed the selection procedure for the position of the Air traffic controller at ŘLP Čr from 2005 - 2009. The data were analyzed using SPSS statistical program. In the vast majority of performance or personality tests did any statistically significant difference was not found between the group of successful and unsuccessful candidates in training. A statistically significant difference was detected in the scale "Noticed matches" in the FEAST test battery, where unsuccessful candidates scored above. Another one was discovered in the test CAQ in factor Q1: Radicalism, where successful candidates achieved lower scores than the unsuccessful. We believe that candidates who manage the selection procedure are so good that it is not possible their further...

Historicamente, os sistemas de tráfego aéreo incorporaram níveis de automação nas atividades de controle do espaço aéreo com o intuito de atender à crescente demanda por serviços aéreos e de melhorar os níveis de segurança nos procedimentos de voo. Com o crescimento expressivo previsto para os próximos anos, devido ao aumento nos números de voos e de usuários, as opções tradicionais de expansão da malha aérea e / ou construção de novos aeroportos se tornaram onerosas economicamente, tornando necessária a adoção de alternativas, tais como as técnicas / procedimentos para pousos em pistas paralelas, como forma de aproveitar parte da atual infraestrutura aeroportuária existente, sem a necessidade de enormes aportes financeiros. Para avaliar a viabilidade de projetos de pousos simultâneos em pistas paralelas, um dos fatores importantes a serem analisados é o da avaliação do risco de colisão entre aeronaves associado durante esses procedimentos. Nesse cenário, este trabalho de pesquisa propõe uma extensão no modelo de avaliação de segurança de Ogata para procedimentos de pouso em pistas paralelas, considerando que o modelo original tem o objetivo de medir o nível de risco associado somente para operações de pouso convencionais em pistas paralelas. A extensão deste modelo ocorre no sentido de também permitir a simulação em outros cenários distintos de pouso, o que torna possível tanto a realização de comparativos entre técnicas / procedimentos utilizadas em operações de pouso em pistas paralelas, quanto a avaliação do nível de risco associado. Este modelo estendido de segurança utiliza o método de Monte Carlo, da mesma forma que o original, em que um número elevado de simulações de cenários possíveis de pousos em pistas paralelas é avaliado. Com os resultados obtidos, é analisado o impacto da variação da distância entre as pistas na segurança de pousos em pistas paralelas. / Historically, air traffic control systems have incorporated some levels of automation to manage procedures of airspace control in order to meet the growing demand for air transportation services and to improve levels of safety in flight procedures. With significant growth expected in the coming years due to an increase in numbers of flights and passengers, the traditional options of expanding the air traffic network and / or construction of new airports have become economically burdensome, requiring the adoption of alternatives such as techniques / procedures for landings on parallel runways as a way of taking advantage of part of the current airport infrastructure, without requiring enormous financial contributions. To assess the feasibility of projects of landing in parallel runways, one of the important factors to be analyzed is the evaluation of the risk of collision between aircraft, associated to these procedures. In this scenario, this research proposes to extend the Ogata safety assessment model in procedures for landing on parallel runways, whereas the original model aims to measure the level of risk associated only with conventional landing operations in parallel runways. The extension of this model occurs in order to allow the simulation of different landing scenarios, which makes possible both the conduct of comparative techniques / procedures used in landing operations on parallel runways, such as the risk level assessment. This model uses the Monte Carlo simulation, the same as the original model, in which a large number of simulations of possible scenarios for landings on parallel runways are evaluated. With these results, it studies the impact of the change of distance between lanes on the safety of aircraft landing on parallel runways.

The effectiveness of information visualization largely depends on the ease and accuracy with which users can access the information. Visual clutter in a display can detract from a user's ability to properly read the information. An ideal visualization needs to maximize the visibility of patterns and structure and minimize the clutter present. Thus far, there has been surprisingly little work done in finding quantitative ways to measure clutter in information visualizations. The goal of this project was to create clutter measurement and reduction techniques that minimize the presence of visual clutter and maximize a user's ability to accurately read the data. These methods were tested and evaluated on a number of visualizations depicting domestic air traffic data.

Historicamente, os sistemas de tráfego aéreo incorporaram níveis de automação nas atividades de controle do espaço aéreo com o intuito de atender à crescente demanda por serviços aéreos e de melhorar os níveis de segurança nos procedimentos de voo. Com o crescimento expressivo previsto para os próximos anos, devido ao aumento nos números de voos e de usuários, as opções tradicionais de expansão da malha aérea e / ou construção de novos aeroportos se tornaram onerosas economicamente, tornando necessária a adoção de alternativas, tais como as técnicas / procedimentos para pousos em pistas paralelas, como forma de aproveitar parte da atual infraestrutura aeroportuária existente, sem a necessidade de enormes aportes financeiros. Para avaliar a viabilidade de projetos de pousos simultâneos em pistas paralelas, um dos fatores importantes a serem analisados é o da avaliação do risco de colisão entre aeronaves associado durante esses procedimentos. Nesse cenário, este trabalho de pesquisa propõe uma extensão no modelo de avaliação de segurança de Ogata para procedimentos de pouso em pistas paralelas, considerando que o modelo original tem o objetivo de medir o nível de risco associado somente para operações de pouso convencionais em pistas paralelas. A extensão deste modelo ocorre no sentido de também permitir a simulação em outros cenários distintos de pouso, o que torna possível tanto a realização de comparativos entre técnicas / procedimentos utilizadas em operações de pouso em pistas paralelas, quanto a avaliação do nível de risco associado. Este modelo estendido de segurança utiliza o método de Monte Carlo, da mesma forma que o original, em que um número elevado de simulações de cenários possíveis de pousos em pistas paralelas é avaliado. Com os resultados obtidos, é analisado o impacto da variação da distância entre as pistas na segurança de pousos em pistas paralelas. / Historically, air traffic control systems have incorporated some levels of automation to manage procedures of airspace control in order to meet the growing demand for air transportation services and to improve levels of safety in flight procedures. With significant growth expected in the coming years due to an increase in numbers of flights and passengers, the traditional options of expanding the air traffic network and / or construction of new airports have become economically burdensome, requiring the adoption of alternatives such as techniques / procedures for landings on parallel runways as a way of taking advantage of part of the current airport infrastructure, without requiring enormous financial contributions. To assess the feasibility of projects of landing in parallel runways, one of the important factors to be analyzed is the evaluation of the risk of collision between aircraft, associated to these procedures. In this scenario, this research proposes to extend the Ogata safety assessment model in procedures for landing on parallel runways, whereas the original model aims to measure the level of risk associated only with conventional landing operations in parallel runways. The extension of this model occurs in order to allow the simulation of different landing scenarios, which makes possible both the conduct of comparative techniques / procedures used in landing operations on parallel runways, such as the risk level assessment. This model uses the Monte Carlo simulation, the same as the original model, in which a large number of simulations of possible scenarios for landings on parallel runways are evaluated. With these results, it studies the impact of the change of distance between lanes on the safety of aircraft landing on parallel runways.

Short Term Conflict Alert (STCA) is an automated warning system designed to alert air traffic controllers to possible loss of separation between aircraft. STCA systems are complex, with many parameters that must be adjusted to achieve best performance. Current procedure is to manually ‘tune’ the governing parameters in order to finely balance the trade-off between wanted alerts and nuisance alerts. We present an incremental approach to automatically optimising STCA systems, using a simple evolutionary algorithm. By dividing the parameter space into regional subsets, we investigate methods of reducing the number of evaluations required to generate the Pareto optimal Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve. Multi-archive techniques are devised and are shown to cut the necessary number of iterations by half. A method of estimating the fitness of recombined regional parameter subsets without actual evaluation on the STCA system is presented, however, convergence is shown to be severely stunted when relatively weak sources of noise are present. We describe a method of aggressively perturbing parameters outside of their known ‘safe’ ranges when complex inhibitory interactions are present that prevent an exhaustive search of permitted values. The scheme prevents the optimiser from repeating ‘mistakes’ and unnecessarily wasting evaluations. Results show that a more complete picture of the Pareto-optimal ROC curve may be obtained without increasing the number of necessary iterations. Efficacy of the new methods is discussed, with suggestions for improving efficiency. Sources of parameter interdependence and noise are explored and where possible mitigating techniques and procedures suggested. Classifier performance on training and test data is investigated and potential solutions for reducing overfitting are evaluated on a toy problem. We comment on potential uses of the ROC in characterising STCA performance, for comparison to other systems and airspaces. Many industrial systems are structured in a similar way to STCA, we hope that techniques presented will be applicable to other highly parametrised, expensive problem domains.

Οι πύργοι ελέγχου αεροδρομίων αποτελούν βασικό συστατικό για την ομαλή και συνεχή εξυπηρέτηση των πτήσεων πολιτικών και στρατιωτικών αεροσκαφών. Βρίσκονται εγκατεστημένοι σε κάθε αεροδρόμιο και αποτελούν το υψηλότερο κτίριο στο περιβάλλοντα χώρο, πράγμα που δικαιολογεί και τον μεγάλο αριθμό κεραυνικών πληγμάτων που μπορούν να δεχτούν. Σκοπός αυτής της διπλωματικής εργασίας είναι η μελέτη ενός συστήματος αντικεραυνικής προστασίας που βρίσκεται εγκατεστημένο σε έναν πύργο ελέγχου αεροδρομίου. Η απόδοση του συστήματος αντικεραυνικής προστασίας διαδραματίζει σημαντικό ρόλο στην αποτελεσματική λειτουργία του πύργου ελέγχου και στη γενικότερη αποτελεσματική λειτουργία του αερολιμένα. Με τη χρήση του προγράμματος εξομοίωσης αναλογικών και ψηφιακών κυκλωμάτων Orcad-Pspice, προσομοιώνεται το σύστημα αντικεραυνικής προστασίας, με βάση τον πύργο ελέγχου που του διεθνούς αερολιμένα Ελ. Βενιζέλος, μετράται το δυναμικό στη βάση του πύργου ελέγχου και τα ρεύματα στους αγωγούς καθόδου, όταν κεραυνός πλήττει το σύστημα συλλεκτήριων αγωγών. / The airport traffic control towers are a key component for the smooth and continuous service flights for both political and military aircraft. They are located at each airport and are the highest building in the surroundings, which justifies the number of lightning strikes that accepts. The purpose of this thesis is the study of a lightning protection system which is installed in an airport control tower. The efficiency of the lightning protection system constitute an important role in the effective operation of the control tower and the overall efficient operation of the airport. Using the analog and digital circuits simulation program Orcad-Pspice, the lightning protection system simulated , based on the control tower to the International airport Eleftherios Venizelos , the measured potential at the base of the control tower and the currents in the downconductors , when lightning strikes the collectors system

Ypatingų aplinkybių (nenumatytų atvejų) planai reikalingi tam, kad oro eismo paslaugos niekada nenutrūktų, oro eismas išliktų saugus ir jo valdymas būtų kuo efektyvesnis (pvz., būtų kuo didesnis oro erdvės pralaidumas). Atsitikus bet kokiai nenumatytai situacijai, pagal jos scenarijų sukuriamas veiksmų planas, kuriuo privaloma vadovautis ypatingomis aplinkybėmis. Pagrindinis tikslas kuriant NAP tai skrydžių saugos užtikrinimas. Tai yra didžiausias prioritetas šiandieninėje aviacijoje. Oro navigacijos paslaugų teikėjo ypatingų aplinkybių (nenumatytų atvejų) planai palyginus su Eurokontrolės ir ICAO rekomendacijomis neatitinka visų reikalavimų. Kai kuriose situacijose panaudoti veiksmų planai nepilnai atitinka realybę arba tiesiog yra nepakankamai aiškūs, todėl juos būtina tobulinti. Darbą sudaro keturios dalys, įvadas, analitinė – metodinė dalis, tiriamoji dalis bei išvados ir siūlymai, literatūros sąrašas. / Contingency planning is necessary so that air navigation service would never be interrupted and safe air traffic services would be provided at any time Whenever a non-standard situation occurs the contingency plan is prepared. The main purpose of contingency planning is both to prevent the services from inefficiency and to decrease the impact of a disaster by increasing safety. Safety in aviation is priority number one, so it is necessary to be ready for any possible situation which could interrupt ANSP’s work. When analyzed and compared with ICAO and EUROCONTROL recommendations ANSP‘s contingency plans do not fully meet the requirements and some changes should be implemented as quickly as possible. It is necessary to have an adequate operational plan for any unexpected situation. Structure: introduction, three parts of work: theoretical and analysis, investigation, conclusions and suggestions, a list of references.

Den här rapporten är en utredning och analys av lämpliga arbetsuppgifter och deras nödvändiga verktyg och hjälpmedel för en skiftledare, Watch Supervisor, vid ett framtida center för fjärrstyrda flygledningstorn, Remote Tower. Ett center för fjärrstyrda flygledningstorn är en centraliserad enhet med uppgiften att flygleda och kontrollera flygsäkerheten på och nära en eller flera flygplatser. Utgångspunkten för datainsamlingen har varit intervjuer med verksamma flygledare och skiftledare på LFV, Sveriges statliga verk för flygtrafiktjänst. Studiebesök har även gjorts vid olika enheter, både flygledartorn och radarkontrollcentraler, däribland Sundsvall RTC som är världens första central för fjärrstyrd flygledning godkänd att sättas i drift. Insamlad data har kompilerats och analyserats och en rekommendation presenteras i slutet av denna rapport angående arbetsuppgifter och verktyg för ovan nämnda skiftledare i ett RTC. Resultatet visar att rollen kommer ha stora likheter med befintliga skiftledarpositioner i den svenska flygledningen.