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A clear definition of pilot performance beyond manipulative skills remains a challenge. Attempts have been made to annunciate the cognitive and behavioural skill set which comprises this area of performance. Crew resource management (CRM) is one such effort which, while it has done much to identify pilot behaviours, has not translated easily into useable selection and general performance instruments. CRM has not yet identified an umbrella construct which clearly and efficiently organises management of flight aspects of the airline piloting role. Markers that are used by airline check and training personnel in a specific airline to assess suitability for command were identified. Organisational understanding of SA was explored and revealed a more strategic focus than the tactical approach adopted by preceding researchers. In a further study, this strategic focus was investigated through a series of semi-structured interviews with experienced airline Captains. Recurring activity themes were identified and were found to approximate the proposed constructs of self-regulation. This concept was explored and defined in a further study which identified actions which were considered essentials to the functionality of each of these recurring themes. These results were used as the foundation for a novel set of management of flight performance indicators for the organisation within which the research was carried out. Initial trials of an ipsative questionnaire derived from these action statements were carried out as the final study of this research / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Human information processing consists of multiple and limited resources; some of them are shared while some are separate and non-interchangeable. High pilot mental workload (PMWL) - and the subsequent decline in performance - results from the imbalance between the mental resources available to perform the task and the amount of resources needed to perform it. When the pilot’s proficiency is evaluated, s/he should deliver an acceptable performance while being able to reserve enough mental capacity for the unexpected, additional resource demands. The task demands and cognitive stressors of air combat have potential to degrade pilot performance to an unacceptable level. Therefore, it is important to understand the amount of mental workload the pilots are experiencing and how much spare capacity they have available to cope with the possible additional resource demands. This thesis was aimed at understanding the relationship between PMWL and performance. The approach presented in this thesis was expected to support the development of reliable metrics for predicting the pilot performance under the stress of combat. In terms of practical applications, this thesis contributed to the development of the methodological principles that could help assuring the pilots’ ability to cope with the task demands higher than those experienced during training or proficiency checks. Heart rate (HR) and heart rate variation (HRV) were used as indexes of PMWL. The selection was done for several reasons. HR and HRV measures were accepted by the pilots as they were non-intrusive and they appeared to be objective. In addition, the implementation requirements were by no means excessive. Considering the aims of this thesis, the low diagnosticity of HR/HRV was not an issue. Finally, HR and HRV proved to be sensitive measures of varying task demands – especially when measured together with the pilots’ awareness of the mission requirements. Simulated fighter missions were used to manipulate the pilots’ task demand and to measure their performance and HR/HR. The thesis is constructed around three studies. In the first study, the subjects were required to fly instrument approaches in a high fidelity simulator under various levels of task demand. The task demand was manipulated by increasing the load on the subjects by reducing the range at which they commenced the approach. HR and the time domain components of HRV were used as measures of PMWL. The findings indicated that HR and HRV were sensitive to varying task demands. HR and HRV were able to distinguish the level of PMWL after which the subjects were no longer able to cope with the increasing task demands and their performance fell to a sub-standard level. The major finding of the first study was the HR/HRV’s ability to differentiate the sub-standard performance approaches from the high performance approaches. In the second study, fighter pilots’ performance and PMWL were both measured during a real instrument flight rules proficiency check in an F/A-18 simulator. PMWL was measured using HR and HRV. Performance was rated using Finnish Air Force’s official rating scales. Results indicated that HR and HRV were able to differentiate varying task demands in situations where variations in performance were insignificant. It was concluded that during a proficiency check, PMWL should be measured together with the task performance measurement. In the third study, fighter pilots’ HRV and performance were examined during instrument approaches and air combat. The subjects’ performance was rated by a weapons instructor. In addition, the subjects’ HRV was measured and used as an indicator of PMWL. During the instrument approaches, low performance was associated with high PMWL as expected. However, during the combat phases of the mission, low performance was associated with low PMWL. When the subject’s awareness of the mission requirements was studied, it was found that the combination of low performance and low PMWL was associated with the subjects’ low awareness of the mission requirements. The major finding was that unless the subjects’ awareness of the mission requirements is examined, the relationship between the mental workload and performance during a complex combat mission may be difficult to explain. It is concluded that HR and HRV are sensitive measures of PMWL in a simulated fighter aviation environment. HR and HRV proved to be associated with the changes in task demands and pilots’ performance during simulated instrument approaches and air combat. However, the results of this thesis suggest that measuring just PMWL and performance is not sufficient – especially if the task of interest is complex and dynamic. To fully understand the pilot performance in such environment, the relationship between awareness of the mission requirements, workload and performance needs to be untangled. While this thesis provides encouraging results to understand this phenomena, further research is still needed before awareness of the situation requirements (or more broadly, situation awareness), performance and mental workload can be measured simultaneously, objectively and in real time.

Cockpit Task Management (CTM) is the initiation, monitoring, prioritization, execution, and termination of multiple, concurrent tasks by night crews. The primary research question posed in the current research is what factors affect task prioritization on the modern day, commercial flight deck. The conventional CTM literature was reviewed as an introduction to CTM validation, its facilitation and its theoretical foundations. A human performance approach to CTM was explored through experimental psychology literature, with the objective of developing a deeper understanding of the prioritization process. Two experimental part-task simulator studies were performed using commercial airline pilots. The objective of the first study was to simply identify possible prioritization factors. The second study then gathered empirical evidence for actual use of these factors. From the results, a model of task prioritization emerged with Status, Procedure and Value as the primary factors that affect task prioritization. / Graduation date: 2000

Piloting a commercial aircraft involves performing multiple tasks in a real-time environment that require pilot's attention and cognitive resource allocation. Due to resource limitation, pilots must perform cockpit task management (CTM) because they cannot perform all tasks that demand their attention at once. Hence, pilots must prioritize the tasks in the order of most to least important and allocate their resources according to this prioritization. Over the years, pilots have developed rules of thumb for task prioritization in facilitating CTM. A task prioritization error is simply an error made by the flight crew when they perform lower priority tasks as opposed to higher priority tasks, where priority is determined by the Aviate-Navigate-Communicate-Manage Systems (A-N-C-S) task ordering. Although the level of flight deck automation has been suggested as one factor influencing the likelihood of task prioritization errors, there has so far been just one study directed towards confirming that hypothesis. Hence the first objective of this study was to determine the effect of the level of automation on CTM performance. CTM performance was measured by looking at the number of task prioritization errors committed by pilots in different levels of automation. In addition to the level of automation, there was also reason to believe that the pilot's automation proficiency might affect CTM performance. Therefore, the second objective of this study was to determine the effect of automation proficiency on CTM performance. Nine airline transport pilots served as subjects in this study. Three flying scenarios and three levels of flight deck automation were simulated on a part-task flight simulator. Each pilot ran three different combinations of flight deck automation and flying scenario. The CTM performance for each pilot was determined by identifying the number of task prioritization errors committed in each experiment run. The average number of errors in different levels of automation and automation proficiency were compared for their effect on CTM performance using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). It was found that the level of automation affected CTM performance depending scenarios in which phases of flight differed. However, automation proficiency, measured by glass cockpit hours, was found to have no effect on CTM performance. / Graduation date: 2000

Graduation date: 1995

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As world transport has grown in complexity, so has public pressure for safe flight. The scheduled airline industry has a consistently good safety record. Unfortunately, the business jet industry has not kept pace with the airline safety statistics and lags far behind. During safety surveys and reports over the past 5 years there has been increasing comment and concern over the perceived safety standards of business jets operations compared with normal scheduled airline services. The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has reported that based on flight hours flown, the fatal accident rate for smaller jet aircraft below 15 tonnes was twice that for large passenger aircraft (CAA 2006a). The CAA also identified that the majority of the accidents occur during the approach and landing phase of the flight. There is however, a lack of research concerning business jet operations. Due to the unique and varied style of operations, business jet flights have many factors that differentiate it from normal scheduled airline operations. Business jet accidents have been reported but they have not been further investigated for any overall causes. The study described in this thesis, a Grounded Theory analysis of accident data was conducted to develop a model of the factors that contributed to the accidents. The model that was developed demonstrated that Pilot skills, Command and Crew Resource management are the key central elements, with the ground organisations such as engineering and ground operations personnel as a contributory influence. As piloting skills were determined as a key factor in the accident statistics and the accident model, a simulator trial was also conducted to assess the manual flying skill levels of business jet pilots. The trial was both a challenging manual flying task and a profile that is included as part of the Pilot Skill test prior to the issue of a commercial pilot’s licence. The simulator trial confirmed that although all the pilots were correctly tested and certified commercial pilots, a significant proportion did not fly an accurate airspeed on approach within the CAA examination tolerances. The simulator trial data and the grounded theory model found that there are concerns for the piloting skills of business jet pilots in their ability to fly an accurate airspeed on approach. The results from this investigation yield findings concerning the piloting skill and accuracy of the business jet pilots that had not previously been identified. The results also emphasise the need to include adequate testing and supervision during business jet operations. It is recommended that further research be conducted to evaluate actual piloting skill and accuracy during the licence skill test.