David Pastor Research Papers Abstracts 2012-2015

Abstracts from a sample of 4 research papers required work for the Embry Riddle Aeronautical University Master of Science in Aeronautics. This work in-progress is part of a continual exploration of the fields of instructional design, educational development and human factors as they apply to professional pilot training.

Sleepwalking Through Professional Pilot Training:

An Alternative Approach to Legacy Ground School Pilot Training Programs

Sleepwalking Through Professional Pilot Training examines the shortfalls of modern professional flight training. Modern airliners have experienced a radical technological and operational evolution over the last 3 decades but professional pilot training programs have failed to keep up with the rapid changes. In the face of exponentially increasing pilot staffing demand, a renewed effort to redesign and retool professional pilot training is necessary. Recent efforts to modernize flight training have neglected an overhaul of theoretical training. The author compiled a survey of available tools that can be used to modernize the theoretical knowledge phase of professional pilot training. The study first draws from sound physiology concepts applied to learning and Dewey’s classic constructionism education theories. It then analyzes contemporary methods already in use in other academic environments such as differentiated instruction, problem-based learning (PBL), learned-centered learning, feedback and self-efficacy concepts, as well as situated learning. The paper also reviews the latest research on brain-based learning (BBL). The paper examines the characteristics of such varied training and educational methods and their application in an aviation environment to answer the following questions:

- Is aviation in need of a new training paradigm? - Are newly developed student-centered and brain research based learning theories as

well as classic constructionist educational concepts adequate for use in an aviation environment?

The paper also identifies barriers to implementation of newly re-designed programs.

In closing the author includes practical examples of how procedures part of an alternative integrated ground school model can improve the current state of professional aviation training, and offers recommendations for further research.

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

― Buckminster Fuller

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Human Factors in Airline Cadet Training

After human errors were clearly identified as the main causal factor of aviation accidents human factors training has been emphasized in all of the areas related to the aeronautical profession. For the last three decades specific human factors training has been issued to pilots, flight attendants, air traffic controllers, aviation maintenance personnel and management. Human Factors (H.F.) is also taught to student pilots as a stand-alone subject required by International Civil Aviation Organization member states. The syllabus for commercial and airline transport pilot licenses includes physiological, psychological and sociological aspects (including organizational dynamics). The effect of Human factors training like Crew Resource Management (CRM) is hard to quantify and often not fully transferable to airline cockpits (HFES 2011, p. 2107). Nevertheless, the effects of CRM training are believed to have been highly positive, contributing to the increase of aviation safety worldwide.

On the other hand, recent research has found that human factors principles are seldom used in the design and delivery of professional aviation training programs. This lack of human factors integration in training has been found across different aspects of training in the aviation industry ranging from maintenance to crew resource management at the post-graduate level in airlines. The absence of H.F. in training is especially relevant in the case of ab-initio (from the beginning) or collegiate airline pilot training schemes. Basic learning theory has taught us that shaping positive attitudes, developing team building, and fostering communication is best accomplished at the initial levels of training. Therefore, efforts for human factors integration should start as early as possible within the basic phases of aviation training. This paper reviews some of the existing literature on the subject of human factors integration within from-zero-experience (ab-initio) aviation training programs.

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Next Generation Ab-Initio Pilot Training:

An Integrative Approach.

Industry and regulators have acknowledged for decades that airline pilot training methods and philosophies have fallen out of synch with the complex operational reality of Next Gen airliners. Pilots continue being trained using legacy training programs to fly ultramodern aircraft. These jets require from pilots a different set of aptitudes and cognitive skills than older generation jetliners did. Integrating efficiently the human element within these complex cockpits is not just a matter of operational efficiency but it is often becoming a bare necessity for survival. Maclean’s online aviation magazine reported in 2011 that in the prior 5 years over 50 commercial airplanes crashed in loss of control (LOC) accidents. The industry points at training as one of the culprits as well as necessary solutions for this deadly trend. As early as 1986 the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) recognized a need for updating pilot training methods and philosophies. ICAO recently created the new multi-pilot licence (MPL) in an attempt to address this need. IATA nevertheless acknowledges that when ICAO created the MPL in 2006 it failed to address much needed changes in the theoretical part of the program. A decade later the modernization of theoretical training processes has not been addressed yet.

Current ab-initio airline pilot training programs devote close to one thousand hours to theoretical training and briefings but only about two hundred hours to practical training on board aircraft and simulators. Airline cadets spend much more time in classrooms than in airplanes and often spend more than a year in the classroom before joining the flight phase but modernization of training has addressed only the latter part of the training. An innovative professional pilot training program needs to address ICAO’s pending task of ground instruction’s modernization in line with today’s operational needs and training capabilities. Such a Next Generation pilot training program will address the reality of current and forecasted operational environments while drawing from modern learning theories.

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Training the Way we Fly:

An Integrative Educational Approach in Aviation

Ab-initio (from the beginning) airline cadet training is the type of program by which airlines and approved training organizations (ATOs) train students with no prior flight experience and theoretical knowledge. When ab-initio training is completed in 18 months of training new pilots with about 200 hours of flight and simulated experience can receive type rating training and become part of the flight-deck crew in major airlines. This type of training model is the preferred mode of professional aviation education in Europe and across other continents with the exception of the US where a longer experiential-based approach to airline crew training and qualification is typically followed.

This paper proposes an integrative approach to ab-initio pilot training programs.

Integrative education is a model of educational design that incorporates many of the characteristics of adult education:

- Is student-focused.

- Is contextual across subject lines.

- Aims to higher level learning (correlation and application).

- Results in high levels of motivation.

- Facilitates enhanced flight training performance.

The advantages of using an integrative model to train ab-initio airline cadet students include higher order learning across all of the domains (skills, knowledge and attitudes), enhanced learning performance and better use of resources. Integrative educational approaches to pilot training can have a positive impact in the safety and economy of training and commercial flight operations

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