NASA's Aviation Safety and Modeling Project

The Aviation Safety Monitoring and Modeling (ASMM) Project of NASA's Aviation Safety program is cultivating sources of data and developing automated computer hardware and software to facilitate efficient, comprehensive, and accurate analyses of the data collected from large, heterogeneous databases throughout the national aviation system. The ASMM addresses the need to provide means for increasing safety by enabling the identification and correcting of predisposing conditions that could lead to accidents or to incidents that pose aviation risks. A major component of the ASMM Project is the Aviation Performance Measuring System (APMS), which is developing the next generation of software tools for analyzing and interpreting flight data

Personality factors in flight operations. Volume 1: Leader characteristics and crew performance in a full-mission air transport simulation

Crew effectiveness is a joint product of the piloting skills, attitudes, and personality characteristics of team members. As obvious as this point might seem, both traditional approaches to optimizing crew performance and more recent training development highlighting crew coordination have emphasized only the skill and attitudinal dimensions. This volume is the first in a series of papers on this simulation. A subsequent volume will focus on patterns of communication within crews. The results of a full-mission simulation research study assessing the impact of individual personality on crew performance is reported. Using a selection algorithm described in previous research, captains were classified as fitting one of three profiles along a battery of personality assessment scales. The performances of 23 crews led by captains fitting each profile were contrasted over a one-and-one-half-day simulated trip. Crews led by captains fitting a positive Instrumental-Expressive profile (high achievement motivation and interpersonal skill) were consistently effective and made fewer errors. Crews led by captains fitting a Negative Expressive profile (below average achievement motivation, negative expressive style, such as complaining) were consistently less effective and made more errors. Crews led by captains fitting a Negative Instrumental profile (high levels of competitiveness, verbal aggressiveness, and impatience and irritability) were less effective on the first day but equal to the best on the second day. These results underscore the importance of stable personality variables as predictors of team coordination and performance

The impact of cockpit automation on crew coordination and communication. Volume 1: Overview, LOFT evaluations, error severity, and questionnaire data

The purpose was to examine, jointly, cockpit automation and social processes. Automation was varied by the choice of two radically different versions of the DC-9 series aircraft, the traditional DC-9-30, and the glass cockpit derivative, the MD-88. Airline pilot volunteers flew a mission in the simulator for these aircraft. Results show that the performance differences between the crews of the two aircraft were generally small, but where there were differences, they favored the DC-9. There were no criteria on which the MD-88 crews performed better than the DC-9 crews. Furthermore, DC-9 crews rated their own workload as lower than did the MD-88 pilots. There were no significant differences between the two aircraft types with respect to the severity of errors committed during the Line-Oriented Flight Training (LOFT) flight. The attitude questionnaires provided some interesting insights, but failed to distinguish between DC-9 and MD-88 crews

Energy Index For Aircraft Maneuvers

Method and system for analyzing, separately or in combination, kinetic energy and potential energy and/or their time derivatives, measured or estimated or computed, for an aircraft in approach phase or in takeoff phase, to determine if the aircraft is or will be put in an anomalous configuration in order to join a stable approach path or takeoff path. A 3 reference value of kinetic energy andor potential energy (or time derivatives thereof) is provided, and a comparison index .for the estimated energy and reference energy is computed and compared with a normal range of index values for a corresponding aircraft maneuver. If the computed energy index lies outside the normal index range, this phase of the aircraft is identified as anomalous, non-normal or potentially unstable

Historical Analysis of Aircraft Flight Parameters

Method and system for analyzing and displaying one or more present flight parameter values (FP(t) of an aircraft in motion at a measurement time t(sub n), and for comparing the present flight parameter value with a selected percentage band, containing historical flight parameter data for similar conditions

Information Display System for Atypical Flight Phase

Method and system for displaying information on one or more aircraft flights, where at least one flight is determined to have at least one atypical flight phase according to specified criteria. A flight parameter trace for an atypical phase is displayed and compared graphically with a group of traces, for the corresponding flight phase and corresponding flight parameter, for flights that do not manifest atypicality in that phase

Micromechanical Properties of Injection-Molded Starch–Wood Particle Composites

The micromechanical properties of injection molded starch–wood particle composites were investigated as a function of particle content and humidity conditions. The composite materials were characterized by scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction methods. The microhardness of the composites was shown to increase notably with the concentration of the wood particles. In addition,creep behavior under the indenter and temperature dependence were evaluated in terms of the independent contribution of the starch matrix and the wood microparticles to the hardness value. The influence of drying time on the density and weight uptake of the injection-molded composites was highlighted. The results revealed the role of the mechanism of water evaporation, showing that the dependence of water uptake and temperature was greater for the starch–wood composites than for the pure starch sample. Experiments performed during the drying process at 70°C indicated that the wood in the starch composites did not prevent water loss from the samples.Peer reviewe

The Need for Quality Aviation Safety Graduates: An Educational Challenge for the 21st Century

The authors investigated a previously unaddressed problem within the curricula of the United States (U.S.) aviation institutions of higher education. Graduates of these institutions were not being prepared to work within the safety departments of the U.S. air carriers involved with one or more of the five current, voluntary programs. To ascertain the need for a solution, a subjective instrument was developed and personally administered to 13 participants within the industry. The qualitative results were interpreted, and, in combination with the knowledge gained from the immersion of a professor within a research organization, resulted in placement of some of the aforementioned content within the curriculum on one campus of one U.S. aviation university in the spring of 2005