PRELIMINARY RESULTS OF AN ONLINE SURVEY TO DETERMINE AIR-TRANSPORT PILOT ATTITUDES ABOUT UPSET RECOVERY TRAINING

摘要

An in-flight upset is any unusual or unexpected airplane attitude or kinetic energy level threatening loss of control inflight(LOC-I) and subsequent ground impact. For the past decade;;LOC-Ihas been the major cause of hull loss andpassenger/crew fatalities in air transport operations worldwide. As a consequence;;many airlines and air-cargo operatorsprovide employee pilots with upset prevention and recovery training (UPRT). Nevertheless;;pilot responses to upsets inrecent preventable LOC-I accidents have led to the suspicion that such training may not be sufficient to prepare pilots tosense and avoid impending upsets and to recover safely from upsets that are not preventable. Under the circumstances;;onewonders how pilots themselves feel about this issue. An online survey was designed to address this question bydetermining air-transport pilot attitudes toward the UPRT they receive. We first describe the survey itself;;then report on itsresults. Implications drawn from data collected in the survey areorganized into four sections: 1) pilot demographics;;2)hours of employer-provided academic;;simulator-based;;and on-aircraft UPRT;;3) pilot confidence in their own ability andthe ability of their peers to recover from a serious upset;;4) attitudes about the sufficiency of employer-provided UPRT.Respondent pilots expressed a lack of confidence in the upset-recovery maneuvering skills of their peers and indicated aneed for improved employer-provided UPRT. Nevertheless;;given the current low air-transport accident rate and pressingeconomic circumstance in air-transport operations;;one wonders if improved UPRT is likely to be forthcoming.