AVP 340 - Human Factors in Flight

Upon successful completion of AVP 340 Human Factors in Flight, the student will be able to:

• Summarize the major visual and auditory perceptual limitations that affect pilot performance, including:
  • Visual illusions for all phases of flight including black hole conditions, runway and terrain slope, runway dimensions and lighting, flat light and sector whiteout
  • Visual flight at night including hazards common to takeoff, cruise and approach/landing
  • Perception of controls and displays
  • Auditory misperception including role of ambiguity, nonstandard phraseology, party-line information, expectancy and readback/hearback problems
• Summarize the major cognitive limitations that affect pilot performance, including:
  • Attention, vigilance, and mental workload
  • Working and long term memory
  • Situational awareness
  • Aeronautical decision making/judgement
  • Hazardous attitudes: anti-authority, resignation, macho, invulnerability, impulsivity
  • Decision biases: availability, gambler’s fallacy, ability, optimistic, anchoring and adjustment, framing, confirmation, overconfidence, entrapment, and hindsight biases
  • The human operator-automation/technology interface
• Provide examples of how perceptual and cognitive limitations exhibited by flight crew were contributory to aircraft accidents and/or incidents and identify strategies necessary to avoid or effectively manage these limitations in flight. 
• Identify ways in which social influences can negatively affect pilot performance, including the role of:
  • Group norms, roles, rank and status
  • Conformity, peer and supervisory pressure
  • Obedience to authority & group think
• List and explain the major elements of effective crew resource management (CRM), including:
  • Resource management (information, aircraft, people)
  • Interpersonal communication (inquiry, advocacy, listening, conflict resolution, critique)
  • Team performance (trans-cockpit authority gradient, relation-task orientation, assertiveness, synergy) 
  • Decision making and risk assessment
  • Leadership and followership
  • Stress Management