Just with the purpose of enlightening our discussion I'm quoting a couple of paragraphs of a CAA paper 2004/10 called
Flight Crew Reliance on Automation,writen by Mr.Simon Wood of Cranfield University
2 Crews of Highly Automated Aircraft Lose Manual Flying Skills
2.1 Summary
There has been very little research published on the subject of the change in manual
flying skill experienced by crews of highly automated aircraft. However, it is reported
consistently that there is a discernible reduction in manual flying skills that is
correlated both with the use of automation and whether the operation is long haul or
short haul.
2.2 Conclusion
The term “manual flying skills” is not fully defined and the loss of manual flying skills
is not covered by previous research.
2.3 Recommendations
Further investigation is required to establish; which skills are degraded, how can the
change be quantified and which pilot groups are affected.
A range of possible mitigating actions should be considered, including increased
practice, increased system reliability, safety reclassification of imposed manual flying
(e.g. to alert ATC), and increased automation training to avoid the necessity for
reversion to manual flight.
3 Inappropriate Response to Failures
3.1 Summary
3.1.1 Abnormal malfunctions have less well defined procedures compared with emergency
situations and therefore crew revert to knowledge-based behaviour requiring more
understanding of the system, plus time and effort to properly assess and resolve the
situation. This refocusing of tasks results in reduced levels of procedural
accomplishment, communications and situational awareness, i.e. relatively minor
failures can absorb both crew members in a way that is disproportionate to the
significance of the problem. Published aircraft procedures specifically do not include
elements of 'airmanship'.
3.1.2 System design is not always appropriate to keep pilots in the loop. (Research has
shown that rather than design systems to work on thresholds or specific limits for
control there should be a continuous flow of information to the pilot to indicate the
difficulty or increasing effort needed to keep relevant parameters on target.)
3.2 Conclusions
3.2.1 The current level of training does not adequately prepare crews to recognise or deal
with all situations that might arise.
3.2.2 Crews may fail to recognise failures because a) they do not have sufficient
understanding of 'normal' automated operation to be able to detect what is abnormal
and b) they do not receive training in recognition of situations from the symptoms as
they appear to the pilot. Thus they may not realise there is a problem or may believe
the problem is different to the real situation. Further, even when they do correctly
recognise the situation, they may not have sufficient system knowledge to respond
appropriately.
3.2.3 As noted under Risk 1 current training does not include practice at recognizing a
situation from the flight deck symptoms, for example, a programming input error or a
navigation database error. Frequency of recognition errors in accidents suggests that
such training would be justified.
3.3 Recommendation
Research should investigate practical ways of incorporating the cognitive elements of
CRM into automation training such that failure recognition and recovery are improved.
V
