Human Factors

[low n' slow]

What are your experiences with human factorsand what are your thoughts regarding aviation psychology?
I recently flew a solo school flight and it didn't quite go as I would have wished!
During the debrief, my instructor asked me how my day had been up to the point of takeoff. I found that nothing had gone as planned and that I'd had a struggle to get things where I wanted. This chain of events obviously had affected me and therby the school session aswell.
A problem I also have is the fact that I get preoccupied with things in flight. If something deviates from my plans, I tend to worry and get angry with myself as I know that I can do better. This also affects my flying as it takes up brain capacity that could have been used to solve the problem!
I am a strong believer in that the "human factors" and aviation psychology affects our flying to great extent. I believe that many chrashes can be explained by looking at the pilots chain of events prior to the flight and by looking at what type of person he was.
I also believe that in being more aware of how we work mentally and with regard to our personality, we can improve our flying quite significantly. Any thoughts regarding this would be very much appreciated as I am interested in other views to this topic.

cheers/lns

[This message has been edited by low n' slow (edited 15 May 2001).]

[FireDragon]

Low N Slow

You raise an interesting point regarding a pilots reaction to former events; perhaps that is one of the reasons psychological tests are in place - they want to know how your state of mind effects your actions, (I think more important than testing for your interaction with other people).

As you state, ever notice how a 'bad day' just escalates? it's almost as if you can will yourself subconsciously to act in a negative manner.

Perhaps we should all engage in a little mental relaxation of sorts, (deep breathing, yoga, neurolistic programming, etc !).

FD

[John Farley]

L&S

Whenever I made a mistake between getting up and going to fly (spilling the breakfast milk, leaving the car choke out, bumping the kerb or whatever) I always gave myself a talking to and made an extra special effort to take care with everything from walking out to the aeroplane onwards. Its just common sense isn’t it? We are much less likely to operate below our normal level while we are consciously thinking about our performance.

As to the point you make about getting cross with yourself in flight after doing something below your normal level, I think it is very important not to dwell on whatever it was until you have landed and turned off the donk. Then by all means ponder and think about why you did not do so well. In the air though, just concentrate on the next thing that has to be done – after all, you are still flying, you haven’t crashed, so by that yardstick you are having a good flight. Just concentrate on keeping it that way and sod the bit before.

JF

[Pielander]

I recently had a 'below standard' day's flying. I did a x-country, and I wasn't overly impressed with my landing at the end of the home leg, even though my landings were fine the day before. I took the aircraft straight back up to do a couple of circuits so I could end the day on a good one, but I ballooned the next two, and ended up doing another 0.7 hrs before I was <reasonably> happy.

I suppose you just have to put it down to experience and try and learn from it. That's what hours building is all about. If you're sitting on the ground thinking about something that didn't go quite right in the air, then it couldn't have gone that badly, could it?

Pie

[low n' slow]

Good point FD.
The psycologist I saw before being accepted by my school tested us for both, but mainly how we reacted under stress.
What they want is people who prioritize in the right order and who always keeps on working, even though it's going down the drain. They also tested us for how we give time to new situations. I'm having troubble explaining this but I hope I get it right!
They made us look into a spinning spiral which after some time stopped and became a circle. The reaction is that the eye interprets the circle as growing while it is actually perfectly still. This is supposed to give the psycologists a good view of how much we occupy ourselves with new situations, just like the ones that could happen in flight.
I do however, also believe in that our personalities affect our flying. Therefore I think that testing how we act together with people is important. People who display great confidence often have troubble taking critisism. This is never good as they will have troubble in improving when needed. If these become captains, they will also have troubble in taking in information from the F/O, which could be vital.
There are different types of leaders, some types better than others and I believe that the democratic leader who isn't a showoff, does not display excessive amounts of confidence in himself and is able to adapt to different personalities so as not to create a conflict, is the perfect leader.
It might be a sensetive subject, but if pilots are not able to discuss these issues openly, we will have problems in the future.
As for relaxing, this is very important. By just giving time and thinking of how you work as a person, will get you very far. And it's comfortable! To find time for this isn't always easy, but whenever possible, just wind down and use the calm to analyse sessions that haven't gone too well. This is what I'll do this summer!
Cheers for some good answers, and if anything else pops up, write it here. I'm interested in keeping this thread going as it might bring up interesting views on things!
regards/lns