The importance of practicing manual flight in automated aircrafts.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This article was originally published in March 2013 in the "REVISTA ATT", magazine produced by “ATT” (CREW ASSOCIATION OF TAM BRAZIL – LATAN AIRLINES GROUP), originally in Portuguese and translated into English for republication. The content is solely responsibility of the author and may not express the opinion of “ATT”. The reproduction is allowed by any means, since the author is cited.

REVISTA ATT March 2013 edition

THE IMPORTANCE OF PRACTICING MANUAL FLIGHT IN AUTOMATED AIRCRAFTS FAA (Federal Aviation Administration), as a regulator agency of aviation in the United States, identifying certain pilot`s recurring deficiencies when performing manual operation in automated aircrafts, recently published on January 4th, 2013 a Safety Alert for Operators (SAFO 13002), to be incorporated in the SOP (Standard Operating Procedures) of the airlines within its jurisdiction.

It recommends that directors of Operations, directors of Training Centers, training and checking pilots emphasize the importance for pilots to exercise their skills in manual flights operations. This procedure should be followed in initial, recurrent, upgrade programs, in real flights (during low workload conditions) and also in simulators.

The same text says that the continued use of automated systems in a cockpit, like autopilot and automated thrust (autothrottle / autothrust), do not reinforce the skills of the pilots on a flight with no use of such facilities. It recognizes, however, that although these automations provide increased safety in aviation, allowing more accurate operations with less workload, on the other hand, may affect, for example, the pilot`s skills to quickly recover the aircraft from a critical or undesired state.

In its justification, FAA mentions that, in recent analysis of incidents, accidents and also in monitoring normal flight operations, it was noted an increase in pilot`s manual handling errors when operating their aircrafts without the use of automated systems. They believe that continuous training and the maintaining of proficiency in manual flight operations will be essential for the safety of aviation.

The FAA safety alert bulletin also suggests that operational policies may be developed and reviewed by the airlines, allowing crews to understand when automatism should really be used, such as, for example, in high workload conditions or in precision approaches that require the full use of autopilot. Procedures should be established to ensure that all involved pilots have the opportunity to practice manual flight in daily operations.

The automation available today in the cockpit of aircrafts are not related only to attitude, power and speed, but is also found in control, management and continuous monitoring of numerous systems, such as fuel, electrical, hydraulic, air conditioning, pressurization, among others.

According to Parasuraman, Sheridan and Wickens ("A Model for Types and Levels of Human Interaction with Automation" - 2000), "automation" can be defined as "the total or partial replacement of a function carried out by a human operator" and, according to the same authors, the cockpit of an automated aircraft can be thought of as "one huge flying computer interface".

Reproduced by Captain Dal Pian

It is known that one of the goals of the aircraft automatism was to alleviate the crew workload, allowing them to devote greater attention to the execution of more complex tasks. But it appears that the reduction of workload occurred when it was already quite small (case of cruise flight), and as it happens, there was a natural deterioration in the alertness and an increase in boredom among pilots, with a tendency to complacent behavior.

On the other hand, according to Don Harris ("Human Performance in the Flight Deck - Ashgate, 2011"), while the automation has reduced the crew workload in the phases where it was already low (as for example, cruise flight), it contributed significantly to increase it in phases of flight where it was already high (as for example, during approaches and landings in terminal maneuvering areas with high density of air traffic). Therefore, cannot be said that automation has totally reduced the workload, Continued on next page

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AUTHOR'S NOTE: This article was originally published in March 2013 in the "REVISTA ATT", magazine produced by “ATT” (CREW ASSOCIATION OF TAM BRAZIL – LATAN AIRLINES GROUP), originally in Portuguese and translated into English for republication. The content is solely responsibility of the author and may not express the opinion of “ATT”. The reproduction is allowed by any means, since the author is cited.

REVISTA ATT March 2013 edition

but it can be changing the nature of such workload, because according to Dekker and Hollnagel ("Coping with Computers in the Cockpit" - 1999), "automated flight decks can be rich in data but poor in information".

According to Dekker, in a general way, there was a reduction in both the “physical” and “mental” work of the pilots.

While the autopilot systems reduced the “physical” workload in routine activities, the so-called “glass cockpit” with high levels of automation and computer displays coupled to the FMS / FMC (Flight Management Systen / Flight Management Computer), also reduced the “mental” work of pilots when flying along certain routes. He warns, however, that all this integrated automation does not relieve, in any way, the human skills to perform the pilot duties, that is, the ability to perform flights safely, efficiently and offering comfort to the passengers.

In November 2012 at the Seminar on Security (Bombardier Safety Standdown - Wichita - USA), former astronaut Gene Cernan, commander of Apollo 17 (NASA) and considered the last man to walk on the lunar surface, made the following statement: “I worry about the complacency that technology is imposing on pilots. Pilots tend to become overwhelmed with all the lights on these glass panels and forget they still have a responsibility to fly the airplane”.

Over the years, the advancement in technology was being incorporated into the aircraft making them safer, but ended up introducing a new type of accident, being described by Sidney Dekker ("The Reinventation of Human Error" - 2001) as one in which "the aircraft is managed into disaster, usually as a result of a common underlying set of

circumstances: human errors, miscommunications and misassessments of the situation”. It emphasizes, however, that it would be very wrong to blame only the pilots in such cases, because accidents are the result many other circumstances, often related to organizational factors, the machine, the weather, the design of the cockpit, the particularity of situations experienced by pilots, their knowledge and training, which sometimes, under certain conditions, everything seems to conspire against the ability to coordinate their activities using the automation available in aircrafts.

And for airmen not to become mere system controllers, but proactive and predictive managers of their flights, with capabilities to promptly intervene and Glass Cockpit make decisions when the failure of automation comes, the importance of continuous training in manually flying automated aircraft should be emphasized still at the beginning, while practicing the first flight hours in the flight training schools.

Later, when entering into commercial airlines to fly more sophisticated and highly automated aircrafts, the same basis could be periodically reminded in classrooms during CRM (Crew Resource Management), in simulators during LOFT (Line Operations Flight Training) programs and even in regular cruise flights, so that the continuous and uneventful use of automatism would not introduce new risks on the safety of aircraft operations.

Captain Luiz Augusto Dal Pian A319/320/321 dalpian@hotmail.com TAM Brasil (LATAM Airlines Group) Graduated in Mechanical Engineering and Post-graduated in Flight Safety

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