Estimating the Benefits of Human Factors Engineering in NextGen Development: Towards a Formal Definition of Pilot Proficiency

Abstract

The concepts-of-operation proposed for the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) implicitly require a significant improvement over existing standards for flightdeck human-computer interaction. Whereas in today's airspace operations there is no routing penalty for delayed response to a required ATC maneuver, flights in high density NextGen airspace that are unable to respond to off-nominal situations in a timely manner, will lose their slot and be shifted to a downgraded level of airspace resulting in flight delays and/or increased route distance. Current design and certification processes for avionics, aircraft, and pilots prove the reliability of the "deterministic" automated functions in a comprehensive manner. The design and certification requirements for ensuring and testing the reliability of the inherently "non-deterministic" operator interaction with the automation are not rigorous and are the source of operational inefficiencies and reduced safety margins. Unless the design and certification process are radically modified and refocused, pilots will find themselves with the same types of issues that researchers documented with the introduction of the "glass cockpit" in the 1980s and 1990's. This paper provides a quantifiable definition of Human Computer Interaction performance and explicit measures of individual and crew proficiency. A method for estimating revenue-service cost savings generated by improved proficiency is described along with an example of the cost savings benefits accrued by a hypothetical large U.S. domestic carrier experiencing improved proficiency in response to FMS error messages ($45M per year). A discussion of the implications and limitations of the definition of proficiency and the cost savings model is provided.

Flight Envelope Information-Augmented Display for Enhanced Pilot Situational Awareness

“…Two factors have promoted a significant increase over recent decades in the level of research devoted to achieving safe and effective human-automation interaction. As described in [4], the 1980s saw the implementation of significantly higher levels of automation functionality in aviation, such as flight management computers, known colloquially as a transition to the "glass cockpit." This transition resulted in the identification of numerous problems in coupling flight crews with automated systems [5], and it took about two decades of research, redesign, and new training methods before pilot confidence in automation and pilot proficiency in using automation effectively became widespread.…”