Sensor Operators Duty Time

[Adam Nams]

Many years ago I was a Sensor Operator on the Nimrod. The 'drys' always did a watch change every so often and this was done IIRC in order to keep a fresh set of eyes on one particular piece of equipment. I have heard various times talked about - anywhere from 20 mins to 1 hour plus - before we loose concentration.

Does anyone have access to any research that has been done on this subject? I am looking at changing some SOPs within my present organisation.

Many thanks in advance :ok:

[airpolice]

anywhere from 20 mins to 1 hour plus - before we loose concentration.

Sounds like a great idea.

I read somewhere that after a while staring at pprune, spelling is the first thing that suffers.

[5aday]

Was it a case of losing concentration or staying conscious especially on a wet trip? At the time I was sure we should have had some sort of F.T.L. scheme with only S.A.R. as an exception but, on reflection, my logbook as an A.E.OP averaged at less than 380 hours per year.
I guess a copy of the old CAP 3.7.1. would be a good start.

5aday

[Stuff]

They used to issue a copy of Human Factors for Aircrew http://www.amazon.co.uk/Human-Factors-Aircrew-Green-Et/dp/0291398413 when you visited RAFCAM at Henlow. If there was research into concentration someone at Henlow will know about it.

I'll dig out my copy of the book later and have a quick look.

[Wensleydale]

In these days of financial restraint and many fewer flying hours to maintain currency (competency is a different matter), the crime of an empty console must be avoided. In the days of "hard crews", then there were many occasions when a console was not used in order to give an operator a break (often one in 3 in the team on the Sentry that I used to run).

Having been out of circulation for a couple of years, I hope that extra crew members are carried on ME aircraft, and console time is not wasted. While hard crews is a good thing, maximum time on console must be a priority and perhaps soft crews is the current way ahead?

[Pontius Navigator]

I think air traffic have similar rules so that may be somewhere else to look.

[Adam Nams]

5aday - Many thanks, and concur ref the wets trips (good excuse to practice cooking), but I am not really after an FTL scheme as we have that pretty much sewn up.

There must have been a reason why the shift change occurred when it did - or was it just one of those 'seems like a good idea...' moments?

Cheers



PS airpolice - why the quick edit???!!!

[Adam Nams]

Many thanks to all for the useful leads - much appreciated. :ok:

[Shackman]

When I first joined the maritime (admittedly Shackleton) world the standard rotation was approx every 20 mins; the reason given was some serious research done by boffins for Coastal Command who had deemed this the best time for maintaining attention span, particularly on radar. It also seemed to work very well, even on the very long sorties we were doing at the time.
When we then went to AEW the RN element ran the radar side, and they had come direct from Gannets where there was no such thing as rotation - you were on radar as long as the aircraft was airborne - so the concept of moving around was quite alien, and TACOs would keep their operators on the screen for 2 hours or more at a time. At the front you could hear the degradation in performance as their 'watch' progressed, but any input from 'maritime' was considered an affront to AEW and immediately ignored/positively to be avoided. This eventually became the norm (2 hours) and future AEW operators learnt to accept it as 'gospel'.

[Ivan Rogov]

I don't remember any official rules for rear crew on Nimrod MR, ISTR it was down to the leads. There were many things that I used to consider when rotating the dry team, experience, training value, mission type, point in the mission, sortie duration, previous performance, ability, sensor workload, other operators requirements, minimum useful kit time, are STANEVAL onboard :-), was it a boring trip after many others, fatigue, etc. Every operator I know has started to nod on radar at silly O'clock on a boring trip so above all I made it very clear that if someone needed or wanted to swap then they should ask. An hour was the rule of thumb but I have seen less than a minute to over 6 hours, somtimes it was right and sometimes not. I think if they had created a rule we would have lost flexibility and changing operators would have become more important than optimising the sensors, that had already begun with other proceedures towards the end of MR2 :(
There were other positions on the aircraft that didn't have the option of swapping round, the poor navs were forced to stay in the same seat for the whole trip, some say that their flying suits actually had Velcro to prevent them getting up. I don't think it's true as they could always tell you about that time they made the tea :rolleyes:

[rockiesqiud]

Can't remember seeing any lead drys on radios. Or many dry lads cooking!;)

[Captain Radar....]

Can't remember seeing any lead drys on radios. Or many dry lads cooking!

Good reasons for lead drys not doing too much on radios. Dry lads not cooking though? Sounds like someone who hasn't done much nuc ASW! I know plenty of excellent dry guy honkers chefs!

I think there is a place for limiting time on sensor, but the length of time is variable depending on circumstances. We used to have a 20 min rotation on visual lookout for SAR for example but part of that was to stimulate peoples senses purely from a change in postion/circumstance (you could move from one lookout postion to another, so the task was the same but the move itself refreshed you). Sitting on radar in the transit for 2 hours wouldn't be a problem but maintaining maximum concentration searching for a riser on inshore ops in SS4 could well be depending on time of day, operator experience, previous rest etc.

The limits placed on air trafficers as someone said earlier might provide the best guidance, I guess some serious research was done on attention spans before their rotation schedules were laid down. Not sure how that fits in with a couple of wetties on the MRA 4 monitoring dozens of buoys for hours on end but that's something we don't have to think about any more........................................................ .....

[The Old Fat One]

Adam Nams

To amplify a couple of the replies...

There was a clear difference between the ASV21D Nimrod MR1 and the Searchwater MR2.

20 mins on ASV was pretty much SOP. After that performance deteriorated rapidly. If the radar was not important, maybe that would be stretched to 30 mins....no longer. This was all down to the old fashioned scope and the need for darkened "tent".

The Searchwater changed all that and watch rotation was more due to training needs and/or boredom. Dry ops could (and did) stay on the Searchwater for whole sorties, although the norm would have been 30-45 minutes depending on the nature of the trip.

The MR1 was far more flexible in the "who did what" department, which meant maintaining a 20 minute cycle was not a problem. Wet men still did radios on the MR1 (that ended when the MR2 came in) and AEOs often stood watches on all the sensors, until the GSU, and then the entry of the MR2 put a stop to that circa 1980.

Hope that is useful.

PS

There is a massive diffrence between an AEW radar op and an ASW radar op. The ASW op (on ASV21D) was staring continuously at a scope looking for a contact (submarine mast) that might only "paint" for one or two sweeps. That takes incredible powers of concentration. Once or twice, when it really mattered, I was involved in "double manning" the ASV. That's two or you squeezed into the radar tent...and back then, my lead dry smoked a ******* pipe! (yep smoking was allowed on the MR1 as well...how times change)

[Yeller_Gait]

As a dry man, radios was the best place to be on an ASW op; there wasn't anything to look at on any of our other screens!

As a lead, I would often choose the radios option as it meant I did not have to fight with budge tape on all the old sonobuoys.

Y_G

[rockiesqiud]

Sounds like someone who hasn't done much nuc ASW! Not recently but come the 1st Sept I'll take a high seas firing clearance on a weekend.:sad:

[Janda]

Must have been made of harder stuff on 201 Sqn. I remember 40 minute rotations between ESM and ASV. I also remember getting into the radar tent after a heavy smoker. Not pleasant.

[Adam Nams]

To everyone else, many thanks for your thoughts and PMs on the subject - much appreciated. :ok: