The squeak of tires on landing, the view over a ridgeline, the red warning light. When I’m fully awake, I’m flying my best. Quote by Thich Nhat Hanh, online article The Three Gems in Tricycle magazine. Original photo of single-seat sailplane CC0 Public Domain from pxhere.
Thirty-five years ago a paper was presented at a conference, titled Ironies of Automation, by Lisanne Bainbridge. It included many insightful ideas: The designer’s view of the human operator may be that the operator is unreliable and inefficient… so should be eliminated from the system. There are two ironies of this attitude. One is that designer errors can be a major source of operating problems… The second irony is that the designer who tries to eliminate the operator still leaves the operator to do the tasks which the designer cannot think how to automate…it means that the operator can be … Continue reading Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think
New research in The International Journal of Aerospace Psychology on the influence of surprise on upset recovery performance in airline pilots is no surprise. Hint— unexpected unusual attitudes caused “significantly more difficulties”. Best be over-prepared. And remember, this was still in a sim. If it happens for real, in a plane, with weird g-forces and the ground in a strange place on the windshield, I’ll bet our performance will be worse than what the researchers saw! Full paper is free online: The Influence of Surprise on Upset Recovery Performance in Airline Pilots Annemarie Landman, Eric L. Groen, M. M. (René) … Continue reading No surprise— upset recovery worse when surprised.
How to tell if you have a feel for your airplane, by Budd Davisson in EAA’s Sport Aviation magazine, September 2017 (paywall): Do you see the air? Or do you just push FMS buttons?
#1 Don’t Panic. #2 #3 Safety. “Safety third. There’s not even a Rule Number Two. But even though there’s nothing in second place, safety is not getting promoted to number two.” Elon Musk’s family rules show a mature understanding of the fallacy of ‘safety first’. There’s lots of other good stuff in this long Rolling Stone interview 30 November 2017.
