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The President's Task Force on Aircrew Complement
Abstract
The President's Task Force on Aircraft Crew Complement: (1) Reviewed the August 1980 decision by the Federal Aviation Administration to certify the McDonnell Douglas DC-9-80 aircraft for operation by a minimum of two persons; and (2) made recommendations concerning the use of two-member crews in the proposed Boeing 757 and 767 and other 'new generation' commercial jet aircraft. Principal conclusions of the Task Force are: Operation of the DC-9-80 by a crew of two is safe and the FAA's certification of the DC-9-80 for operation by a minimum crew of two was proper and in compliance with the Federal Aviation Act.
... In the latter part of the 1970s and beginning years of the 1980's, aircraft manufacturers and other industry professionals who were proponents of the two-person cockpit met great resistance with the public and the airline unions representing the crew members [1]. In fact, the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) took the matter of a three versus two-person cockpit to the President of the United States (Ronald Reagan) to plead their case [15]. The President appointed a commission to investigate the issue. ...
... The President appointed a commission to investigate the issue. Commission members concluded that the two-person cockpit was safe and that the certification process the FAA was using was consistent with the Aviation Safety Act of 1958 [15]. Since that time, airliners have operated with a two-pilot cockpit [11]. ...
There are several compelling reasons for airlines to consider single pilot operations including economic savings, coping with a shortage of pilots, and automation and artificial intelligence technology advancement. To adequately explore this concept, differing aviation industry views of single pilot operations (SPO), challenges associated with single pilot operations, an overview of current SPO research and options, and conclusions and recommendations are presented. Ultimately, many obstacles to implementation must be overcome including convincing the general public that it safe which may be the biggest challenge of all. However, SPO will continue to move forward not only due to potential commercial aviation economic benefits, but also because one day, technology will allow it and perhaps even demand it.
... Following the results of the 1981 Presidential Task Force on Crew Complement, much discussion has ensued regarding the process of certificating crew workload in commercial transport aircraft. The 1981 Task Force recommended improved workload assessment techniques be brought to bear on the certification process (McLucas, Drinkwater, and Leaf 1981). ...
... In many cases the task-times are based on measurements of actual crew performance so that the task analyses will provide the best possible estimate of actual crew behavior in the finished airplane. In fact, it was concluded by the President's Task Force on Crew Complement that the timeline analyses performed by airframe manufacturers represented the state-of-the-art during the last transport airplane certification efforts (McLucas, Drinkwater, and Leaf, 1981). Because the task times in the task timeline analyses were validated with actual crew performance data, it was concluded they were representative of the actual crew workload that would be experienced by any trained flight crew. ...
The purpose of Volume Two is to present specific guidelines and recommendations for evaluating workload certification plans. No attempt is being made to provide a list of simple-to-follow directions for the generation of an aircraft workload certification plan, as this is the responsibility of the manufacturer. Volume One summarizes the activities leading up to and including two user community workshops and two simulation studies conducted at the Man- Vehicle Systems Research Facility, NASA-Ames Research Center. The workload assessment techniques are discussed by domain area: Subjective, Physiological, Performance, and Analytic techniques. The distinction by domain is convenient because of the methods and equipment in common among techniques within a domain. Evaluation criteria for assessing a workload certification plan includes treatment of the validity, reliability, and applicability of candidate workload measures. For a workload measure to demonstrate validity, it must be able to discriminate among varying task demands imposed upon the flightcrew. In order for a measure to demonstrate reliability, it should provide the same results with repeated applications. Applicability is simply the ability for workload to be assessed in an aircraft flightdeck environment.
... Sixty years ago, the early flight deck crew required five members to operate safely: the pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer, navigator and radio operator [2]. By the 1980s, the flight crew in commercial aviation had been reduced from the original five to two: the Captain (CA) and First Officer (FO), while the tasks of flight engineer, navigator and radio operator were replaced by automation and the remaining two pilots [3]. Since the establishment of Two-crew Operations (TCO), the number of crewmembers has not been further reduced, but many cockpit automation and flight procedures have advanced significantly [4]. ...
The high costs of pilot training and remuneration have placed a heavy financial burden on airlines, prompting people to actively study Single Pilot Operations (SPO). Achieving SPO undoubtedly requires the development of the new conceptual framework, and how to reallocate system functions among new agents to obtain optimal system design has become the primary problem in the early stages of the system lifecycle. To solve this problem, this paper applied the Human-centered Design (HCD) approach for the first time to the development and evaluation of SPO in the typical approach and landing scenario. Firstly, the combination of Hierarchical Task Analysis (HTA) and Abstraction Hierarchy (AH) was used to identify five function requirements and six function assumptions for the transition from the current Two-crew Operations (TCO) to the future SPO to develop the SPO model. Subsequently, the TCO and SPO models were transformed into two network models to evaluate the result of system function reallocation from the network level and node level using Social Network Analysis (SNA). The network parameters of both levels show that the future SPO developed in this paper has the advantages of better stability, less pilot workload and higher safety than the current TCO.
... Thus, the role of the flight engineer also became redundant but there was a certain controversy regarding whether threeor two-person crews would be safer [19]. In order to finally shed light on the safety of two-and three-person cockpit crews, a special task force was appointed and the final report was published in 1981 [23]. The results of the investigation clearly showed that a three-person crew was 2.4 Ev olution of t he T wo-Person Crew | 17 not safer than a two-person crew. ...
Due to the technological progress, increasingly sophisticated and highly automated systems have replaced human roles in the cockpit of commercial aircraft. Consequently, the crew size has been reduced from initially five to two cockpit crew members over the past decades. Nowadays, a captain and a first officer share the tasks throughout the flight by assuming the roles of pilot flying (PF) and pilot monitoring (PM). However, in light of the ongoing technological advancements, the logical next step seems to be a further de-crewing from two-crew operations (TCO) to single-pilot operations (SPO). To provide adequate support for the single pilot, a redesign of the cockpit is required.
The present study contributes to this research area by adopting a human-centered perspective and investigating how the PF is affected by the absence of the PM during commercial SPO. A study was conducted in a fixed-base Airbus A320 flight simulator. Fourteen professional pilots participated. Their task was to fly short approach and landing scenarios at Frankfurt Airport both with and without a PM. A 2x3 factorial within-subject design was used with the factors crew (TCO and SPO) and scenario (baseline, turbulence, and abnormal). A combination of quantitative and qualitative data was collected in the form of subjective workload ratings, eye-tracking data, simulator parameters, video recordings, and debriefing interviews.
The results showed that workload was not generally higher during SPO but particularly the temporal demand increased significantly. Additionally, checklist usage was less consistent and pilots handled the abnormal scenario differently when the PM was absent. The pilots’ scanning behavior was also significantly affected by the absence of the PM. Pilots had to spend considerably more time scanning secondary instruments at the expense of primary instruments. Moreover, transition behavior between the cockpit instruments and the external view was less efficient in SPO and was interpreted in terms of an overload on the pilots’ visual modality.
This research will help inform the design of commercial SPO flight decks providing adequate support for the single pilot. Several implications for the design of SPO cockpits are discussed, such as headup displays, multisensory interfaces, augmented reality glasses, advanced automation, and additional support from ground operators.
... Jet engines eliminated the need for inflight engine adjustments made by engineers, and improvements in navigation electronics and digital radio tuners eliminated the need for navigators and radio operators; all while providing significant gains in capability, performance, and reliability (Fadden, Morton, Taylor, & Lindberg, 2015). Consequently, by the 1980s, the standard crew size for domestic passenger flights was reduced to two: the Captain and First Officer (McLucas & Leaf, 1981). Although the captain is responsible for the flight, s/he and the first officer generally trade tasks to balance their workload. ...
Objective:
To provide an overview of concepts of operation for single pilot operations (SPO) and a synthesis of recently published work evaluating these concepts.
Background:
Advances in technology have made it possible for a commercial aircraft to be flown by a single pilot under normal conditions, and research is being conducted to examine the feasibility of implementing SPO for commercial aviation.
Method:
Context leading up to the consideration of SPO for commercial flight is provided, including the benefits and challenges. Recent studies examining issues relating to automation, operations, and communications in the SPO context are presented.
Results:
A number of concepts have been proposed and tested for SPO, and no one concept has been shown to be superior. Single pilots were able to successfully resolve off-nominal scenarios with either the ground-support or cockpit-automation tools examined. However, the technologies developed in support of these concepts are in prototype forms and need further development.
Conclusion:
There have been no obvious "show stoppers" for moving toward SPO. However, the current state of research is in its initial stages, and more research is needed to examine other challenges associated with SPO. Moreover, human factors researchers must continue to be involved in the development of the new tools and technologies to support SPO to ensure their effectiveness.
Application:
The research issues highlighted in the context of SPO reflect issues that are associated with the process of reducing crew members or providing remote support of operators and, more generally, human interactions with increasingly autonomous systems.
... In 1978, the US Airline Deregulation Act was passed removing government control over industry operations and, as a result, new technologies thrived in the highly competitive marketplace as airlines scrambled to reduce costs and improve profitability by automating as much as pos-sible. For example, a 1981 US government study found that transport aircraft could be safely flown by two pilots instead of three by replacing the flight engineer with advanced computers and automated systems, leading the way for a technology-push towards 'glass cockpit' and 'fly-by-wire' systems popular today (McLucas et al., 1981). Meanwhile, the increased use and complexity of flight simulators in pilot training caused the FAA to establish an Advanced Simulation Plan to develop standardised criteria for the first time (Federal Aviation Administration, 1991). ...
Through a critical case study of the crash of American Airlines Flight 587, this paper draws upon ‘the Social Shaping of Technology’ (SST) approach to offer a reconceptualisation of the technology-push and market-demand model for High-Reliably Organisations (HROs), providing support for a third factor, called here a ‘safety-pull’. A safety-pull is defined as organisationally supported reflexivity in which technology innovators and frontline operators collaborate to consider the potential implications of adopting new technologies in HROs and the complex ways this change may impact human operators' work performance, often in risky and unanticipated ways. In contrast to accidents occurring solely as the result of individual operator error, analysing the safety-pull provides a way to tease out the wide range of factors that can contribute to HRO failures and offers a new SST perspective through which to examine high-risk operations.
... In 1981 the President's task force on crew complement reported on workload assessment techniques employed in aircraft certification programs. In general, the workload measures and test domain employed in recent certification programs were judged to be "state of the art"; however, a number of improvements have been recommended for future efforts (McLucas, Drinkwater, and Leaf, 1981). The recommendations include: (a) Improving subjective measurement methods, (b) Studying crew performance under a variety of conditions; line operations (full-mission) simulation using selected line pilots used in conducting these studies, (c) Consulting with qualified line pilots in the area of workload evaluation, (d) ...
... The President's Task Force on Flight Crew Complement (McLucas et al., 1981) analysed the safety implications of the reduction of the number of flight deck crew from three to two in the "new generation" (at the time) of medium-range airliners (e.g. Boeing 757/767 series). ...
Purpose
This paper aims to make a case that with the appropriate use of human factors methods it is possible to design and develop a single crew commercial aircraft using largely existing technology.
Design/methodology/approach
From a review of the literature it is suggested that some of the functions of the non‐flying pilot would be better assumed by either onboard automation or ground‐based systems.
Findings
It is argued that the design of the flight deck and the role of the pilot require re‐conceptualising to accommodate the requirements for flying a highly automated aircraft single‐handed. With such re‐design, considerable efficiency gains will be achieved, but to fully realise these gains a system‐wide approach is required which extends beyond the design of the aircraft per se .
Research limitations/implications
This is only a high‐level thought piece to stimulate debate. Much greater consideration of all the issues raised is required, as is a change in regulatory requirements.
Practical implications
If implemented, the single crew aircraft could result in a revolution in air transport, offering considerable cost savings, especially on shorter routes with relatively small passenger loads.
Originality/value
A first attempt to use human factors as a design driver to produce operational and economic efficiency by the novel use of existing technologies spun‐out from other areas of aircraft development.
... In 1981 the President's task force on crew complement reported on workload assessment techniques employed in aircraft certification programs. In general, the workload measures and test domain employed in recent certification programs were judged to be "state of the art"; however, a number of improvements have been recommended for future efforts (McLucas, Drinkwater, and Leaf, 1981). The recommendations include: (a) Improving subjective measurement methods, (b) Studying crew performance under a variety of conditions; line operations (full-mission) simulation using selected line pilots used in conducting these studies, (c) Consulting with qualified line pilots in the area of workload evaluation, (d) ...
The primary goal of the contract was to identify assessment techniques which demonstrate evidence of validity and reliability and are suitable as measures of flightcrew workload for aircraft certification. To use a workload assessment technique with confidence for the certification of an aircraft flightdeck, the validity and reliability of the technique must be well established. Validity is the capability of the assessment technique to measure the abstract construct it is proposed to measure. Reliability is the capability of the measure to produce the same results with repeated testing. A comprehensive literature review was conducted to identify workload measures which have an empirical record of validity and reliability. All candidate workload assessment techniques had to be applicable for evaluating workload in an aircraft environment. Two workshops were conducted to bring together experts in the workload assessment field to determine candidate measures for simulation testing (aided by the literature search), and make recommendations for testing in a high fidelity simulation. Two separate simulation tests were conducted at the Man Vehicle System Research Facility at NASA-Ames Research Center using a Phase II B-727 motion-base simulator.
For financial and operational reasons many aircraft manufacturers are working on the development of single-pilot commercial aircraft. It is suggested that cargo operations may commence in the early 2030s followed by passenger flights later that decade. Two technological approaches for the development of single-pilot airliners are being developed either based upon extant technology and operating concepts derived from uninhabited aviation systems and military aircraft, or alternatively based upon high levels of onboard autonomy/automation. This review considers the economic, technological, regulatory (safety) and societal acceptance of the single-pilot airliner, and examines some of the operational challenges that airlines may face. It is suggested that while the technological and safety challenges may be resolved, it is the operational challenges that may determine if the concept is ultimately viable.
Many methods and models have evolved in recent years with the objective to improve our ability to predict and measure workload, based on the desire to assure operators can perform all tasks as required. With this evolution has come a better recognition of differences in need, language has become more precisely defined and there now is less confusion of concepts and purpose than 10 years ago. There is now a wide assortment of workload “tools” with widely varying degrees of complexity. Additionally, more attention is being given to whether the tools measure what they purport to measure, and whether the variety of tools now proposed actually do measure the same thing.
We address the problem of lean staffing with a review of the Department of Defense Architecture Framework and conclude that the human system aspects of the relevant Organizational and Systems Views need to be informed by special analytic methods from Cognitive Systems Engineering. We describe a systematic framework for Human Views in a companion paper. In this paper, we illustrate how selected knowledge acquisition methods of cognitive engineering can be used to generate supplemental information for the Human Views needed to resolve the issue of lean staffing.
Research and applications in human–machine teaming continue to evolve the role of the human from immediate (manual) operator into supervisory and televisory controller. In the supervisory control role, the human operator will be functionally removed from the system under control and in the televisory role, the human operator will be physically removed. Although unmanned systems and vehicles have become a technical reality that drives this change, they will not eliminate the importance of the human operator as the commanding and controlling element in-the-loop. This paper will argue that existing automation concepts remain equally valid with an even greater emphasis on the need for a human-centered automation approach. Intelligent agent technology has become mature and attractive enough to implement the automated components of the human–machine team. Agents that implement the Beliefs-Desire-Intention syntax will be discussed as being of particular interest for human–machine teaming applications. This paper proposes a theoretical framework for teaming human and intelligent agents. The teaming framework will be demonstrated in a real-time simulation environment using the commercial game called Unreal Tournament and its existing GameBot extension. The intelligent agents will be implemented based on the Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) syntax and using JACK, a commercial BDI Agent development language. The requirements for follow-on research, such as human–agent teaming, human–agent coordination and agent learning will be highlighted.
The past decade has seen papers in this journal and other cognitive engineering publications expressing concern about some
of our foundational ideas. Cognition, a central construct for this journal, is one that some authors would see banished. Function allocation is another. These commentaries, if taken seriously, have the potential to transform our discipline but whether for benefit
or detriment is questionable. I review those commentaries in this paper and conclude that the issues raised have merit but
that the proposed solutions would be counterproductive, having the potential, if widely implemented, to cripple our discipline.
I argue that these commentaries appear credible only because they appeal to an objectivist paradigm as engendered by a techno-centric
world view and that they fail to accommodate the inescapable subjectivity of a scientific enterprise. I further argue that
these commentaries do not take full account of the fundamental basis of our discipline; that it is an analysis and design
discipline and that it is first and foremost human centric. Our discipline requires a work-focused perspective. We need to
think seriously about what that means, and we need to deploy language and methods that are entirely consistent with a work-focused
stance.
With the advent of microprocessor technology, it has become possible to automate many of the functions on the flight deck of commercial aircraft that were previously performed manually. However, it is not clear whether these functions should be automated, taking into consideration various human factors issues. A NASA-industry workshop was held to identify the human factors issues related to flight-deck automation which would require research for resolution. The scope of automation, the benefits of automation and automation-induced problems were discussed, and a list of potential research topics was generated by the participants. This report summarizes the workshop discussions and presents the questions developed at that time. While the workshop was specifically directed towards flight-deck automation, the issues raised and the research questions generated are more generally applicable to most complex interactive systems.
The authors outline how the advantages of improved navigational
accuracy can benefit both the individual aircraft and the air
transportation system despite a mixed environment. The development of
advanced navigation, flight planning, performance optimization,
automatic guidance, and other capabilities in current and future flight
management systems, together with the availability of digital
communications between the airplane and ATC, suggests the need to review
the potential airplane contributions to the ATC system of the future. A
number of application areas utilizing current airborne flight management
technology have been proposed for use with ATC that could provide
significant operational benefits. These include: time-navigation
applications in traffic management; multisensor navigation to provide
automatic dependent surveillance; improved precision for approach,
missed approach, and departure procedures; and improved navigational
accuracy supporting reduced airway widths, holding pattern airspace, and
aircraft separation standards. Several examples of operational benefits
for operators and ATC during the transition period are identified, and
the need for integrating these features into future ATC capabilities and
procedures is stressed
Role theory hypothesizes that role conflict and role ambiguity are negatively related to job satisfaction and performance. Results of recent research indicate, however, that role conflict and role ambiguity are not always negatively related to job satisfaction and performance: Sometimes no relationships are found. The present study used a rationale suggested by previous research and role theory to reconcile the inconsistent results of previous research. Data were obtained from 331 questionnaires completed by employees of a large manufacturing firm. The rationale for reconciliation was based upon the organization level of the employee. Role ambiguity was hypothesized to have a greater negative relationship than role conflict with job satisfaction and performance for employees at higher levels in an organization. Conversely, role conflict was hypothesized to have a greater negative relationship than role ambiguity with job satisfaction and performance for employees at lower levels in an organization. Results support the hypothesized relationships with job satisfaction but not with performance. The lack of support for the performance hypotheses is discussed in terms of an ability-adaptability phenomenon. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
How does adding workers to a team effect output? 9 college students were used to simulate a radar control situation involving an increasing load of approaching aircraft. Performance decreased with added load, however, adding helpers upgraded performance only slightly. "The results of this experiment indicate that simple crew augmentation does not necessarily improve the capacity of a complex man-machine system." (13 ref.) From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4LF95K. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
5 groups varying in training context (team vs. individual) and skill acquisition (individual, coordination, and communication skills) were compared at transfer on team (coordination of interceptions) and individual (number of interceptions) performance of a simulated radar-controlled aerial intercept task. Individual performance was unaffected by the training variables, but team performance was a positive function of the emphasis on coordination skills during training. When acquisition of coordination skills was held constant, context had no effect on transfer performance. Intrateam communications retarded performance but prohibiting these communications during training did not lessen their disruptive effect at transfer. This inhibitory influence of team communications reflected the verbal transmittal of information irrelevant to the task or more readily obtainable from the radar scopes.
A SIMULATED RADAR-CONTROLLED AERIAL INTERCEPT TASK WAS USED TO EXAMINE VERBAL COMMUNICATION BETWEEN TEAMMATES UNDER VERBAL (COMMUNICATION NECESSARY) AND VERBAL-VISUAL (COMMUNICATION UNNECESSARY) CONDITIONS. COMMUNICATION FACILITATED TEAM PERFORMANCE ONLY IN THE VERBAL CONDITION. TEAM PERFORMANCE, HOWEVER, WAS BEST IN THE VERBAL-VISUAL CONDITION. A TRANSFER-OF-TRAINING PARADIGM WAS EMPLOYED TO DETERMINE IF VERBAL SKILLS DEVELOPED IN 1 CONDITION WOULD TRANSFER TO THE OTHER CONDITION. DIFFERENTIAL TRANSFER OCCURRED NEITHER IN COMMUNICATION NOR IN TEAM PERFORMANCE. IT IS CONCLUDED THAT VERBAL COMMUNICATION, WHEN NOT REQUIRED BY THE TASK, PLAYS AN INSIGNIFICANT ROLE IN TEAMWORK, AND THAT THIS ROLE APPARENTLY IS NOT ENHANCED BY VERBAL TRAINING.