Stress levels when landing

[Vicky]

Can anyone help me,

I am a student in my final year at uni and I am also a civilian gliding instructor for the air cadets on a weekend. I am currently working on my final project titled "Changes in Stress Levels of Pilots when Landing Aircraft" and finding info very hard to come by. Can anyone help? Would greatly appreciate any suggestions.

A desperate Student


Vicky

[Oleo]

I would try contacting some of the human factors lecturers at various big flight schools - they could most likely point you in the right direction.

I read/heard somewhere that a particular 747 captain's pulse rate went up to 120 for take off and over 160 for landing!

[DeltaTango]

try contacting the NTSB IATA ICAO or any other big organization. Chances are that they have done research and various tests on pilots about this...

[Ian Hamilton]

Vicky,

I wonder if you mean “Stress Levels” or whether you mean “Workload” and/or “Work rate”. But as you’re probably doing either psychology or psychiatry I must go carefully as I know tiddly squat about either.

To most of us folk in the street, stress in private life is that condition where a person is dealing with rapidly changing, unfamiliar or unpleasant situations such as divorce, moving house, death of someone close etc. At work, stress is too much to do, jobs at or beyond one’s training or ability limits, environment/boss/colleagues that preoccupy etc. As far as I know, from my time on the flight-testing waterfront, stress of these kinds was never studied in the cockpit.

However, measurements of workload, or rather methods of measuring workload, were extensively studied – usually on the back of other flight test work, as the cost/benefits of workload measurement were never convincing enough to justify special projects. One favourite was heart-rate measurement and many reports were published. There will be some in the massive library of the Royal Aeronautical Society but their library list is not yet available on the web. Call them or email them; they have a web site with contact numbers.

The old NATO agency known as AGARD (Advisory Group for Aerospace Research and Development), now known as RTA, published unclassified collections of papers on subjects like this and these will be in the UK National Libraries such as NPL (or whatever it’s called these days).

Most pilots would not reckon to suffer stress because of the landing task itself. When the workload required exceeds the work-rate available then I suppose stress may result. But it is the job of aircraft designers, trainers and those who develop procedures to make sure this doesn’t happen. OK, when procedures go wrong, emergencies intrude, ATC controllers (who are themselves under “stress” ) impose delays etc, then pilots may feel stress. But in the normal way of things, there isn’t any unless you’re a student. But then you’re an instructor so you’ll know this.

E-mail me if you think I can help more.


[This message has been edited by Ian Hamilton (edited 03 November 2000).]

[Alfie_Midnight]

Vicky,

I think there might be some relevant info for you in 'The Naked Pilot' by David Beatty. It might involve trawling through it because I don't think there's a chapter dedicated to just the approach/landing phase but it's well worth a read IMO.

The info regarding the Captain's heart rate is in there-P.61

Cheers,

Alfie

[AffirmBrest]

Never noticed much stress on ldg, am always asleep or admiring the majestic landscape of Hounslow :)

Sorry, couldn't resist - seriously tho', would you need to compare different types of approach, and would it matter what the crew were due to do after the sector?

I, for one, wouldn't like to make a habit of Full-on CAT 3B ldgs all day every day, but the occasional visual is nice...also it makes a difference to my arousal(oo-er)/mental state depending on whether I am due to go home, go to the hotel for a n/s or have a rushed turnaround and probable delay before departure on the 3rd sector of five.

Maybe you could provide a link on PPRuNe to any conclusions you reach - I would be interested to read them.

Have fun!

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...proceeding below Decision Height WITH CAUTION...

[redsnail]

Well, I got one of those cute dinky heart rate monitors. I wore it over a week's worth of flying. Heart rate went up a bit during take off. It settled down in cruise and went up again during approach and landing. However, it really increased around 100' and lower during the landing phase. It really went up if the landing was a challenge, ie, fluky crosswinds and so on. In comparison, my heart rate was slightly above normal when ever I was flying compared to the normal resting rate.
That satisfied my curiosity.

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reddo...feral animal!

[Busta]

Oleo,

Who was PF when the 747 captains pulse rate hit 160?

be careful out there

[Doors to Automatic]

Vicky,

Try contacting the Phsycology department within the College of Aeronautics at Cranfield. They do a lot of this sort of work and should be able to provide you with plenty of relevant information.

[willbav8r]

I think NASA did a lot of study in this area. Perhaps the RAF and USAF / USN have this information as well.

I think I can HEAR my instructors' heart pounding when I make a crosswind landing!!!!

Good luck

Wil

[Ian Hamilton]

Two old publications found when I was searching for something else:

Simulation and Study of High Workload Operations. AGARD Conference Proceedings No 146; published 1974

Assessing Pilot Workload. AGARDograph No 233; published 1978

Old, yes, but not necessarily out of date. There will have been updates and revisions at about 5-10 year intervals.

You'll get these from DRIC; they'll be expensive even if they can be bought (copies only). But your Uni library ought to be able to borrow them on your behalf as they're for a Thesis/Project.

Search the Web yourself and find stuff like this...

"The Defence Research Information Centre (DRIC), part of DERA, offers a wide range of services in science and technology information. The Centre holds unpublished scientific and technical reports produced by the UK defence community and by overseas defence sources. Included in the archives, which date back to WW2 and contain over 600,000 items...

Dr Theresa Gow at DRIC
tel: 0141 224 2901/2/3
email: [email protected] "

By the way, if you are receiving the contributions on this thread, some acknowledgement would be nice ...

[Vicky]

Thanks everyone for your replies. I am reading them just having a little trouble trying to get a reply on so I hope it works this time!