Aviation is a dynamic environment where deadly conditions can raise their ugly heads at any moment. This "killing condition" (Kern, 1998) is one that all pilots and crews are aware of and accept; the management of these situations is critical to the survival of everyone on that aircraft. These situations historically have been in the hands of crews that had a direct interface with the aircraft through the controls, whether with hydraulics or cables. Within the last decade and a half this trend has begun to diminish. Instead of a direct connection between the control surfaces of the aircraft and the crew, now there is an interruption in the flow of information (albeit a reliable one in most cases). The computer is becoming an ever more present control device in the cockpit. From controlling pressurization to flying zero-zero approaches, the computer-based systems on aircraft are becoming increasingly more advanced, but unfortunately, this has occurred without taking into account the critical limiting factor: the pilot.
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