The Effect of Combat on Aircrew Subjective Readiness and LSO Grades During Operation Desert Shield/Storm

The effect of operational tasking on aircrew readiness during combat operations continues to be an area of intense investigation within the U.S. Navy. The recent Persian Gulf War provided a unique opportunity to collect data examining aircrew work/rest cycles and operational tasking in a combat environment. For 4 consecutive weeks during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, 18 A-6 and 18 F-14 aviators onboard the USS AMERICA (CV-66) completed daily work/rest logs of their activities while conducting operations from the Red Sea. Activities on the work/rest logs were coded to a resolution of one-half hour. Several flight parameters were also obtained including: 1) takeoff and landing time, 2) flight duration, 3) mission type, 4) consecutive days during which a flight occurred, 5) landing signal officer (LSO) scores, and 6) arresting wire engaged on landing. In addition, after each mission aircrew provided a subjective assessment of the amount of time that they needed to rest before another air-to-ground strike mission could be flown (a measure of subjective readiness). Multiple regression analysis indicates that flight duration, the number of flights per day, and the time-of-day that the flight occurred, impact heavily on subjective evaluations of aircrew readiness. Few consistent relationships were observed between the independent measures and LSO grades. The data obtained here represent a unique look at aircrew work/rest patterns as they effect aircrew readiness during armed conflict. These data provide unique and valuable information to air wing commanders and senior mission planners when tasking carrier-based aviators. In addition, these data provide an essential database for squadron and air wing flight surgeons to draw upon when assessing aircrew readiness

Work/Rest Schedules and Performance of F/A-18 Aviators During Fleet Exercise 1992

As a continuation of our previous work during Operation Desert Shield/Storm, we examined the effect a fleet exercise has on the work/rest patterns, fatigue, and cognitive performance of F/A-18 aviators. For 10 days during Fleet Exercise 1992, 25 pilots from VFA-81 and VFA-83 completed daily work/rest logs while performing their usual tasks. Subjective measure of fatigue, quality of rest, and sleep need were also collected. A subset of these F/A-18 pilots completed a brief battery of cognitive tasks as soon before flying as possible and again after the flight debrief. As a group, the pilots were adequately rested with little or no problem sleeping, and they operated on a typical work/rest schedule for deployed F/A-18 aviators. However, in some instances during which late night missions were flown, sleep onset was delayed, coupled with shorter sleep periods and additional sleep problems. Several work/rest and flight related parameters were related to subjective measures of aircrew combat readiness, including: (1) flight quartile, (2) number and order of flights per day, (3) flight duration, (4) flight hours 72 h before a mission, (5) total work 24 h before a mission, (6) total sleep 12 h before a mission, and (7) total hours continuously awake before a mission. All seven variables significantly contributed to a multiple regression model derived using subjective strike delay, accounting for 51 percent of the variance. Moreover, statistically significant changes were observed from pre- to post-flight on a fatigue-sensitive reaction time task

A Survey and Analysis of Aircraft Maintenance Metrics: A Balanced Scorecard Approach

Performance metrics have helped to sustain the Air Force, improve processes, and guided decisions makers through decades of challenges and change. The Air Force continues to change as it faces the challenges of an aging fleet coupled with the tightest budget constraints of modern times. The current metrics employed by the United States Air Force Aircraft Maintenance community have gone largely unchanged over decades despite a host of force altering events. The focus of this research is to evaluate current maintenance metrics and assess the utility of the Balanced Scorecard framework for use in a Maintenance Group. The researcher utilizes a mixed methodology to accomplish this evaluation, including survey research, statistical analysis, content analysis, and correlation analysis. The paper proposes a Maintenance Group Balanced Scorecard based on the analysis of survey responses from Maintenance Officers with Combat Air Forces (CAF) experience. The proposed Balanced Scorecard is comprised of existing, refined, and proposed metrics to measure each perspective category of the Balanced Scorecard, and is intended to help align maintenance metrics with organizational goals/objectives and the strategic goals of Maintenance Groups in CAF units

In harm’s way? Payday loan access and military personnel performance

Does borrowing at 400 percent APR do more harm than good? The Pentagon asserts that payday loans harm military readiness and successfully lobbied for a binding 36 percent APR cap on loans to military members and their families (effective October 1, 2007). But existing evidence on how access to high-interest debt affects borrower behavior is inconclusive. We use within-state variation in state lending laws and exogenous variation in the assignment of Air Force personnel to bases in different states to estimate the effect of payday loan access on personnel outcomes. We find significant average declines in overall job performance and retention and significant increases in severely poor readiness. These results provide some ammunition for the private optimality of the Pentagon’s position. The welfare implications for military members are less clear-cut, but our results are consistent with the interpretation that payday loan access causes financial distress and severe misbehavior for relatively young, inexperienced, and financially unsophisticated airmen. Overall job performance declines are also concentrated in these groups, and several pieces of evidence suggest that these declines are welfare-reducing (and not the result of airmen optimally reducing effort given an expanded opportunity set); e.g., performance declines are larger in high unemployment areas with payday lending.Loans

Using Evolutionary Algorithms for the Scheduling of Aircrew on Airborne Early Warning and Control System

Equipped with an advanced radar and other electronic systems mounted on its body, Airborne Early Warning and Control System (AWACS) enables the airspace to be monitored from medium to long distances and facilitates effective control of friendly aircraft. To operate the complex equipment and fulfill its critical functions, AWACS has a specialised flight and mission crew, all of whom are extensively trained in their respective roles. For mission accomplishment and effective use of resources, tasks should be scheduled, and individuals should be assigned to missions appropriately. In this paper, we implemented evolutionary algorithms for scheduling aircrew on AWACS and propose a novel approach using Genetic Algorithms (GA) with a special encoding strategy and modified genetic operations tailored to the problem. The objective is to assign aircrew to various AWACS tasks such as flights, simulator sessions, ground training classes and other squadron duties while aiming to maximise combat readiness and minimise operational costs. The presented approach is applied to several test instances consisting notional weekly schedules of Turkish Boeing 737 AEW&C Peace Eagle AWACS Base, generated similar to real-world examples. To test the algorithm and evaluate solution performance, experiments have been conducted on a novel scheduling software called AWACS Crew Scheduling (ACS), developed as a test bed. Computational results reveal that presented GA approach proves to be quite successful in solving the AWACS Crew Scheduling Problem and exhibits superior performance when compared to manual methods

Aerospace medicine and biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes, supplement 125

This special bibliography lists 323 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in January 1974

Proposed improvement of system status displays for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet aircraft

The gradual decline in Department of Defense weapons procurement dollars combined with increased weapon system costs has lead to reduced purchases of new tactical aircraft. In an effort to reduce costs and become more efficient, the services have chosen to procure multi-role tactical fighter aircraft. Each new aircraft takes the place of two or more single-mission, previous generation aircraft and the missions they performed. The modern multi-role aircraft, such as the F/A-18 Hornet and the F-15E Strike Eagle, are tasked with execution of numerous Air-to-Ground (A/G), Air-to-Air (A/A), and Suppression Of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD) missions. These aircraft utilize complex weapon and sensor suites, though specific weapon and sensor requirements vary widely from mission to mission. The weapon and sensor suites of modern, multi-role tactical fighter aircraft consist of both offensive and defensive systems. The status of these systems must be assessed prior to flight to determine if the aircraft is fully capable to execute the mission tasking. Equipment Built-in Test (BIT) can provide detailed information to the aircrew as to system status, but this information is frequently difficult to interpret. System health information must be presented in a manner which will allow aircrew to make a critical GO / NO GO decision. BIT information should detail performance of each weapon or sensor function critical to mission execution. The BIT information also must be available in a timely fashion, particularly for United States Navy aircraft who operate under strict time constraints which limit time available to diagnose system degrades and failures. This paper provides specific recommendations to improve the display of weapon and sensor status information in the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet aircraft. BIT display formats are modeled around the most recent FA-18 System Configuration Set (SOS), and apply to weapons and sensors carried on that platform. The goal of the display format improvements is to provide aircrew with timely presentation of weapon and sensor health in such a way that they can make educated GO / NO GO decisions. Information in this paper is UNCLASSIFIED, EXPORT CONTROLLED

Pilot workload and fatigue: A critical survey of concepts and assessment techniques

The principal unresolved issues in conceptualizing and measuring pilot workload and fatigue are discussed. These issues are seen as limiting the development of more useful working concepts and techniques and their application to systems engineering and management activities. A conceptual analysis of pilot workload and fatigue, an overview and critique of approaches to the assessment of these phenomena, and a discussion of current trends in the management of unwanted workload and fatigue effects are presented. Refinements and innovations in assessment methods are recommended for enhancing the practical significance of workload and fatigue studies

A Human Error Analysis of General Aviation Controlled Flight Into the Terrain Accidents Occurring Between 1990-1998

Although all aviation accidents are of interest to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), perhaps none is more disconcerting than those in which a fully functioning aircraft is inexplicably flown into the ground. Referred to as controlled flight into terrain (CFIT), these accidents continue to be a major safety concern within aviation, in particular general aviation (GA). A previous study as part of the FAA\u27s Safer Skies agenda examined 165 CFIT accidents using root cause analysis and developed 55 interventions to address their causes. While the study represented the work and opinions of several experts in the FAA and industry, the findings might have benefited from a more detailed human error analysis involving a larger number of accidents. In this study, five pilot-raters independently analyzed more than 16,500 GA accidents occurring between 1990-1998 using the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS). Of the GA accidents examined, 1407 were identified as CFIT and compared with non-CFIT accidents using HFACS. The analysis revealed a number of differences in the pattern of human error associated with CFIT accidents. Findings from this study support many of the interventions identified by the CFIT Joint Safety Analysis Team (JSAT) and Joint Safety Implementation Team (JSIT), permitting safety professionals to better develop, refine, and track the effectiveness of selected intervention strategies

Pragmatic Divestment of KC-135 Navigators in the Special Operations Air Refueling Mission

In the late 1990s, the Air Force eliminated over 200 KC-135 navigators, leaving 50 remaining for the aircraft\u27s most complex Special Operations Air Refueling (SOAR) mission. As the Air Force unveils the KC-46 Pegasus, this mission will continue but without a position for the navigator. Instead, navigators will undergo divestment as the SOAR mission transfers to the KC-46. Current plans indicate navigators will not only remain as the KC-46 arrives, but inbound navigators will continue arriving until 2018. This thesis applies the Delphi method, a process eliciting analysis anonymously from a panel of experts, in order to examine the elements affecting KC-135 navigator divestment and offer a more effective, comprehensive solution. Ultimately, the panel of experts arrived at conclusions supporting the hypothesis that navigator divestment and SOAR transition should occur sooner, rather than later, in order to secure a future for current navigators, ensure responsible development of Air Force officers, and enable the complex SOAR mission to endure. In order to best achieve these results, the experts recommended halting all inbound navigator assignments, reassigning navigators at a conservative rate over the next several years, and beginning a SOAR transition program to replace the tanker navigator with a third pilot concept