Development of pilot training requirements for Personal Aerial Vehicles

This paper describes research activities conducted at the University of Liverpool as part of the myCopter project into the development of training requirements for pilots of Personal Aerial Vehicles (PAVs). The work has included a Training Needs Analysis (TNA) to determine the skills required of a PAV pilot and the evaluation of a training programme that covers the development of the skills identified by the TNA. The effectiveness of the training programme has been assessed using the first three Levels of Kirkpatrick's method. The evaluation showed that the developed training programme was effective, in terms of engaging the trainees with the subject, and in terms of developing the skills required to fly a series of PAV-mission related tasks in a flight simulator

Towards the Development of a Flight Training Programme for Future Personal Aerial Vehicle Users

Interest in personal aerial vehicles (PAVs) is resurgent with several flying prototypes made possible through advances in the relevant technologies. Whilst the perceived wisdom is that these vehicles will be highly automated or autonomous, the current regulatory framework assumes that a human will always be able to intervene in the operation of the flight. This raises the possibility of manually operated PAVs and the requirement for an occupant flying training programme. This paper describes the development of training requirements for PAV pilots. The work includes a training needs analysis (TNA) for a typical PAV flight. It then describes the development of a training programme to develop the skills identified by the TNA. Five participants with no real flying experience, but varying levels of driving experience, undertook the training programme. Four completed the programme through to a successful simulation flight test of a commuter flight scenario. These participants evaluated the effectiveness of the training programme using the first three Levels of Kirkpatrick’s method. The evaluation showed that the developed training programme was effective, in terms of both trainee engagement and development of the handling skills necessary to fly PAV mission-related tasks in a flight simulator. The time required for the four successful participants to develop their core flying skills was less than 5 h. This duration indicates that future simulation PAV training would be commensurate with the training duration for current personal transportation modes

Demonstration of a partially automated assessment approach to create an individualised, open-ended modelling worksheet

\ua9 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Partially automated assessment is implemented via the ‘Printable worksheet’ mode in the Numbas e-assessment system to create a mathematical modelling worksheet which is individualised with random parameters but completed and marked as if it were a non-automated piece of coursework, preserving validity while reducing the risk of academic misconduct via copying and collusion. A simple modelling scenario is used for this demonstration. A cylindrical tank of water is draining through a small hole in its base, with the size of the tank, size of the hole and initial volume of water randomised so that the details are different for each student. Students are guided through deriving a model of the movement of water out of their version of the tank, asked to compute the expected time for it to empty and asked to discuss some aspects of the model and their findings in a discursive narrative report

Optimising Handling Qualities for Tilt Rotor Aircraft

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Disseminated cryptococcosis with brain involvement in patients with chronic lymphoid malignancies on ibrutinib

Abstract We report 2 cases of disseminated cryptococcosis with central nervous system involvement in patients with chronic lymphoid malignancies occurring within 1 month of starting on ibrutinib. Characteristically, in both cases, no inflammation was seen in the cerebrospinal fluid. Central nervous system mycoses should be considered as a potential complication of ibrutinib.</jats:p

Phase Transition in Liquid Drop Fragmentation

A liquid droplet is fragmented by a sudden pressurized-gas blow, and the resulting droplets, adhered to the window of a flatbed scanner, are counted and sized by computerized means. The use of a scanner plus image recognition software enables us to automatically count and size up to tens of thousands of tiny droplets with a smallest detectable volume of approximately 0.02 nl. Upon varying the gas pressure, a critical value is found where the size-distribution becomes a pure power-law, a fact that is indicative of a phase transition. Away from this transition, the resulting size distributions are well described by Fisher's model at coexistence. It is found that the sign of the surface correction term changes sign, and the apparent power-law exponent tau has a steep minimum, at criticality, as previously reported in Nuclear Multifragmentation studies [1,2]. We argue that the observed transition is not percolative, and introduce the concept of dominance in order to characterize it. The dominance probability is found to go to zero sharply at the transition. Simple arguments suggest that the correlation length exponent is nu=1/2. The sizes of the largest and average fragments, on the other hand, do not go to zero but behave in a way that appears to be consistent with recent predictions of Ashurst and Holian [3,4].Comment: 10 pages, 11 figures. LaTeX (revtex4) with psfig/epsfi

Progress in the development of unified fidelity metrics for rotorcraft flight simulators

Flight simulators are integral to the design/development, testing/qualification, training and research communities and their utilisation is expanding rapidly. The quantification of simulation fidelity underpins the confidence required for the use of flight simulation in design, to reduce real life testing, and to provide a safe environment for pilot training. Whilst regulatory simulator standards exist and new standards are in development, previous research has shown that current standards do not provide a fully quantitative approach for assessing simulation fidelity, even in a research environment. This paper reports progress on developments of the HELFLIGHT-R flight simulator at the University of Liverpool, and its subsequent use in a research project (Lifting Standards) aimed at creating new predicted and perceived measures of simulator fidelity, derived from handling qualities engineering. Results from flight tests on the National Research Council (Canada) Bell 412 ASRA research aircraft and HELIFLIGHT-R piloted simulation trials are presented to show the strong connection between handling qualities engineering and fidelity assessment. The issue of (pilot) perceived fidelity is examined and the development of new metrics discussed. Copyright (c) 2010 by the American Helicopter Society International, Inc. All rights reserved

myCopter: Enabling Technologies for Personal Air Transport Systems - an Early Progress Report

This paper describes the European Commission (EC) Framework 7 funded project myCopter (2011-2014). The project is still at an early stage so the paper starts with the current transportation issues faced by developed countries and describes a means to solve them through the use of personal aerial transportation. The concept of personal air vehicles (PAV) is briefly reviewed and how this project intends to tackle the problem from a different perspective described. It is argued that the key reason that many PAV concepts have failed is because the operational infrastructure and socio-economic issues have not been properly addressed; rather, the start point has been the design of the vehicle itself. Some of the key aspects that would make a personal aerial transport system (PATS) viable include the required infrastructure and associated technologies, the skill levels and machine interfaces needed by the occupant or pilot and the views of society as a whole on the acceptability of such a proposition. The myCopter project will use these areas to explore the viability of PAVs within a PATS. The paper reports upon the early progress made within the project. An initial reference set of PAV requirements has been collated. A non-physical flight simulation model capable of providing a wide range of handling qualities characteristics has been developed and its function has undergone limited verification. Results from this exercise show that the model behaves as intended and that it can deliver a predictable range of vehicle dynamics. The future direction of the themes of work described within the paper are then described

Perfect weddings abroad

Approximately 16% of UK couples are currently married abroad. However, academic or practitioner focused research that explores the complex nature of a couple’s buying preferences or the development of innovative marketing strategies by businesses operating within the weddings abroad niche sector, is almost non-existent. This exploratory paper examines the role and relevance of marketing within the weddings abroad sector. The complex nature of customer needs in this high emotional and involvement experience, are identified and explored. A case study of Perfect Weddings Abroad Ltd highlights distinctive features and characteristics. Social networking and the use of home-workers, with a focus on reassurance and handholding are important tools used to develop relationships with customers. These tools and techniques help increase the tangibility of a weddings abroad package. Clusters of complementary services that are synergistic and provide sources of competitive advantage are identified and an agenda for future research is developed