PC tool development for simulating flight management process of jet airliner pilots

Airline pilots operating scheduled flights must consider flight safety, economical use of fuel to minimize expenditure, punctual flight operation, and passenger comfort. In this paper, we use the term "flight management skill" to denote an operational skill that takes the abovementioned factors into consideration. Research into flight management skill is limited because of high experimental costs and the availability of full-flight simulators. In order to perform flight management skill research easily, we have been developing a PC tool. The main feature of this PC tool is that it not only displays a simplified flight situation, but also records and displays the operation history as a time-series table. The PC tool does not reproduce all the components of the actual flight; we have to extract the significant factors that affect the decision-making process in an actual flight. For examinees to be able to obtain information on the flight conditions easily, the design of the PC tool interface is important. This paper demonstrates the results obtained using different styles of PC tool interface, and the discussion suggests interface guidelines. Studies have been conducted with airline pilots using the scenario of Haneda Airport runway closure due to an earthquake. We have also conducted experiments for the same scenario using a fullflight simulator. The experiments showed that essentially the same results were obtained using the PC tool and the full-flight simulator with regard to differences in decision making between inexperienced and experienced pilots.