Aircraft Automation: Enhancing Flight Path Control, Reducing Weather Minima, and More - Research Paper

Introduction

Contemporary aircraft are progressively dependent on automation for effective and safe operation (Darr, Ricks & Lemos, 2008, 1). In essence, automation has a great range of benefits such as enhanced flight path control, reduced weather minima and improves passenger wellbeing. Moreover, good automation replaces pilots from non-rewarding or monotonous jobs that are not suited for humans and decreases the amount of work that frees attentional resources to concentrate on managing cockpit automated systems. Besides, displays that monitor systems together with diagnostic assistance systems provide support to pilots and maintain staff comprehension of airplane system states. However, when an automated system is mishandled or misunderstood it can lead to major incidents. For instance, the Airbus 380 engine break-up after takeoff from Singapore in 2010. As such, automation leads to aircraft developing an unwanted state from which it is hard to recover using traditional hand-flying skills. Effects of Automation in the Aircraft Cockpit Environment: Skill Degradation, Situation Awareness, Workload is an article written by Julian Archer (2012). The article focuses on three automation problems that impact safety including reduced situational awareness, flight crew workload and degradation of basic piloting skills and incompatibilities of cockpit systems with the Air Traffic Control System.

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Summary of the Main Article

There has been a heightened technological advancement in the commercial aviation field. These improvements are observed when comparing traditional and modern aircraft cockpits. The modern cockpits are highly automated, this means that in modern aircraft there is less need for direct human control of some specific jobs (Archer, 2012, 28). The development of automated systems has been continuously enhanced due to the potential benefits they provide. In truth, research has shown the economic benefits of automation such as ease in maintenance support, enhanced reliability, reduced crew training time and complement, fuel-saving and increased cross-crew qualification among similar aircraft. Therefore, automation has accrued benefits in the commercial aviation industry.

The introduction of automated systems in the aircraft deck has extended functionality of the system well beyond the existing abilities of the human and have provided desired advantages (Archer, 2012, 7). However, these benefits come at a cost of human factor problems among them reduced situational awareness, flight crew workload, and incompatibilities of cockpit systems with Air Traffic control System and degradation of piloting skills. In essence, automation covers some specific functions but not all thus humans have been reduced to manage automation while performing some functions themselves. Therefore, due to the complexity of increasing automation systems that need operators to monitor, when a problem arises it becomes untenable.

Skill Degradation

Automation removes the pilot from controlling the aircraft manually. As such, the pilots' skills are degraded though non-practice and complacency. In modern automation flight deck, Manual skills of flying aircraft are replaced which is manifested through decreased cognitive skills and psychomotor skills. These two skills are vital in the event that automation fails. Therefore, in the case of automation failure, the pilot may take over the automated job in an inefficient manner which potentially can lead to an incident or accident (Archer, 2012, 10). Moreover, overreliance in automated systems reduces the ability of the operator to develop the required robust mental models of flying the aircraft manually. Therefore, aircraft cockpit automation impacts negatively on the operators' manual flying skills.

The study established that 70-80 percent of aircraft accidents occur due to human error. The study illustrates skill-based error by citing commercial aviation accident records from 1990-1996 by US National Transport Safety Bureau using Human Factor Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) which indicated that 63.6 percent of aircrafts incidents or accidents occurring due to cargo operations involved at least one skill-based error. A 2008 Boeing study illustrates that approach and landing phases account for 43% of fatal accidents while climb and takeoff phases account for 31% of fatal accidents. As such, approach and landing accidents are likely to involve loss of aircraft control by the pilots.

Situation Awareness

Automation of the cockpit makes it hard for operators to maintain a high awareness of the changes happening inside the cockpit that is perception, comprehension and projection of the automated systems operation (Archer, 2012, 24). These problems occur as a result of a focus on reliability and functional factors of automation by aircraft automation designers ignoring the human aspects that are in play in the aircraft cockpit. Firstly, an operator needs to understand the given situation and carryout jobs assigned to them in the cockpit. Secondly, the pilot needs to evaluate and interpret what happens around them inside the cockpit. Thirdly, the aircrew is able to project the future status of their aircraft through the dynamics and elements that they have acquired in the earlier stages. Therefore, loss of situational awareness is a significant aspect that leads to the present aviation incidents and accidents. The study establishes that cockpit automation affects three major mechanisms which are: the assumption of passive role instead of an active role in controlling the system, changes in vigilance and complacency associated with monitoring, and changes in the form or quality of feedback provided to the human operator. Each of these aspects leads to the falling out of the flight job loop by the human element.

According to UK CAA situational awareness causes 41% of fatal accidents in the air. Furthermore, A US Air B737 failed to take off at New York LaGuardia airport in 1989 landing in a river. This was as a result of the flight operators mistakenly disarming the autothrottle system. No pilot discovered the mistake therefore takeoff abort procedure was not executed in time this led to the demise of two passengers and destruction of the aircraft.

Workload

Automated support systems in an aircraft directly reduce the workload of operators during job performance. However, this advantage can be undermined in three ways. First automated systems have led to a decrease in workload when its level was manageable, however, it increases at times of peak task load. Such an imbalance in the workload can aggravate situation awareness of the crew. Second, the changes from active system operator to system monitor expose the pilot to a broad range of monitoring responsibilities that need intense mental demands which leads to increased cognitive workload. According to Archer (2012, 46), 51% of documents reviewed in the study supported the existence of workload problems. To support its argument, the study cited On 20th January 1992 Air Inter Flight ITF148, an Airbus A320 which took off from Lyon to Strasbourg and crashed on the way. The crew was working under peak task load when they confused heading/ vertical speed with track/ flight path angle mode leading to the accident.

The study concludes that the criticality and existence of human factors problems are correlated to cockpit automation. As such, the study recommends that human factors issues should be considered as important parts of the cockpit automation design process to fully realize the advantages of automation

Response

In response to this article, the argument is effective and convincing. The authors' ideas are clear and well organized. Further, the article has utilized enough support materials to argue its case. As such, the thesis of this article is important as it illustrates the impacts of over-reliance on automation by designers while ignoring human factors in automation. The article cites threes main human aspects connected to automation that impacts incidents or accidents of aircraft which include situational awareness, workload and pilots skills degradation. Thus, the study posits that these human errors problems are as a result of increased cockpit automation (Archer, 2012, 33). However, the study does not provide concrete solutions to the human issues in cockpit automation.

I do not fully agree with this article that human factors are related to cockpit automation. The study focuses on three human factors influences for most aviation incidents and accidents but the author does not evaluate the number of accidents that have been avoided by positive human factor intervention. Therefore, I feel that this article has overlooked the importance of human factors in maintaining and enhancing the safety of flight operations in the present world as well as for the future of air travel. According to Satchell (2016, 17), Technology advancement will continue offering more in automation; thus, the nature of the association between aviation and human factors will continue changing.

My claim is that the implementation of automation and technological advancement has reduced the number and severity of accidents in commercial aviation. The role of pilots has changed from a task of total control of the aircraft to that of system monitoring and supervision (Koeppen, 2012, 4). As such, human errors in the article are just a consequence of this change. As the increase in automation continues redefining the piloting role the pilots themselves have adjusted but not without mistakes as to err is human. As such, this role between human error and automation needs to be examined as human factors have emerged as the leading contributing factor in commercial aviation accidents.

Inagaki & Itoh (2014, 4) Posits that to avoid automated systems surprises that are as a result of autopilot and apply responses that are imperative to guarantee automation safety in urgent situations. As such, Inagaki concurs that there are some emergency situations that decision-making authority should be given to the automation. Therefore, there is a need for implementing adaptive automation in aircraft to enhance safety and complement pilots in cases of emergency. Aviation automation aims at removing frequent accidents, managing hazards and mitigating incident and accident outcomes (Darr, Ricks & Lemos, 2008, 3). Thus, next-generation operational needs for airborne systems will implement enhance technology with advanced abilities such as navigation and communication.

(Denney, 2014, 8) the correctness and efficiency of autopilot demand that each subsystem of properly communicate all the levels of transitions and then perform appropriately on the resulting state. For instance, the Flight management system (FMS) regulates the aircraft ailerons and elevators and consequently the movement of the aircraft. This means that reducing error based issues reduces the number of accidents or incidents happening in the US commercial aviation industry.

Furthermore, the recommendation of the study claim that human factors should be incorporated in the cockpit automation process to avoid incidents or accidents is incorrect rather operators and pilots should be well trained and competent to complement the automated systems. When the automated system is faulty or does not perform as intended there is a need for pilots to have adequate manual flight control training and experience to control the aircraft (Koeppen, 2012). For instance, in the case of AirIndia Charters Ltd aircraft, B737-800NG, May 26, 2010, whereby the use of automation by the operator of a Boeing 737 for a long time made him unprepared for manual override of the airplane when automation failed. The airplane was on a routine flight from Dubai to Pune when it suddenly started an uncontrolled dive towa...