Tomaski, #40, the skills required for awareness - understanding, do not involve a motor function.
Without previous experience aiding appropriate understanding there is little opportunity to identify the correct action.
Many of the situations erroneously related ‘loss of manual flight skills’ have not been experienced or even known of, thus the cognitive task is very demanding and often requires a change of ‘view’ (reframing**).
The required focus on the ‘machine’ does not imply more new technology, but a review of how current systems have been accepted - certification assumptions, particularly in the context of the overall operational environment.
** recent research on startle and surprise.
https://pure.tudelft.nl/portal/files...on_startle.pdf
Apart from the relative importance of surprise over startle, there is an important discussion on the need and difficulty of changing ‘frame’ - thinking for situation awareness. Many problems arise from the generation of background knowledge in training and due to operational constraints, e.g SOP culture, expected SOP for every situation, and repeated situational training by rote without considering alternative context.
Not more training, reconsidered training with respect to new systems - the machine, together with modern operations.
It would be possible to review and change these aspects of the ‘situational machine’ right now, if only we choose think about them and not be distracted by calls for more manual flight.
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