Do Age and Experience Level Affect Views of Pilots’ Towards Cockpit Automation

Abstract

Pilots trained over the last 20 years are more likely to have learned to use cockpit automation as an inherent part of their training when compared to pilots trained in earlier eras who first learned to fly and then were trained in the use of automation. Cockpit automation facilitated the elimination of the flight engineer from the crew and shifted the remaining cockpit crew member’s focus from hands on control to programmers and monitors of automated systems that can control the vertical and horizontal flight path for most of the flight. Some airline companies are accepting applicants for pilot training with no previous flight experience, this trend is unprecedented in the history of commercial flight in the US. While automation has improved the safety and efficiency of commercial flights, it has created new concerns relating to loss of manual flying skills and issues of mode confusion and the phenomenon of automation surprises. This paper analyzes the correlation between the pilots’ perspectives and their demographics. A total of 77 pilots who operate highly automated cockpit systems participated in this research. Each question was analyzed regarding correlation by using R software and the Spearman Correlation Analysis method. Some of the questions revealed there is a significant difference towards cockpit automation when we consider the pilots’ perspectives. This survey also revealed the pilots perspectives about their companies. Older pilots are more likely to think that their companies do not allow them to fly manually often enough. Although airline company policies are similar, the survey responses reflected that older pilots are not happy with those policies as well. Three demographic specifications were used for the Spearman’s Correlation Analysis. Age was one specification and the other two were Flight Time correlation and Seat correlation (Captain versus First Officer). The total number of questions for five dimensions was 37 and 9 of these questions resulted in significantly different answers when considering the demographics. The answers provided by end users (pilots) should be considered when engineers create automated systems that are to be used and monitored by humans. Airliners that are 100% autonomous are not possible in the foreseeable future. Automated aircraft control systems should be designed to exploit the best qualities of both the technology and the human operators across different demographics.