Achieve excellence on the automated flight deck! The first practical guide that shows professional pilots how to safely transition to the automated flight deck Today's remarkable aircraft require remarkable airmanship skills. Automation Airmanship is a breakthrough book that helps pilots master these skills by introducing Nine Principles for Operating Glass Cockpit Aircraft. The nine principles were derived from over a decade of fi eldwork with organizations worldwide that have successfully transitioned to advanced aircraft fleets. Each principle provides a building block for a simplifi ed, straightforward, and disciplined approach to operating increasingly complex aircraft safely and effectively in demanding operational environments. Written by experienced airline captains who have trained others through the glass cockpit transition, this book presents ideas useful to both veteran glass cockpit pilots and those new to the twenty-first century flight deck. More than a simple list of skills, this powerful resource draws on real-life examples, providing the roadmap you need to successfully transition from steam to glass--and maintain a performance edge for your entire career. Features: In-flight experience of experts Success stories and lessons learned from across the industry Real-world accident investigations to underscore the importance of these principles Powerful tools to avoid errors or to resolve them when issues arise A guide to fundamentals of automated flight deck architecture Principles and practices for all phases of flight operations

This is Katrina Beikoff's, memoir of the year she and her young family spent living and working in Shanghai. During their year, Katrina and her family witnessed a range of major events: a snow storm, an earthquake, the Tibetan uprising, the cover-up of incidents at the Beijing Olympics, the melamine milk scandal and the global financial crisis.

The advent of very compact, very powerful digital computers has made it possible to automate a great many processes that formerly required large, complex machinery. Digital computers have made possible revolutionary changes in industry, commerce, and transportation. This book, an expansion and revision of the author's earlier technical papers on this subject, describes the development of automation in aircraft and in the aviation system, its likely evolution in the future, and the effects that these technologies have had -- and will have -- on the human operators and managers of the system. It suggests concepts that may be able to enhance human-machine relationships in future systems. The author focuses on the ability of human operators to work cooperatively with the constellation of machines they command and control, because it is the interactions among these system elements that result in the system's success or failure, whether in aviation or elsewhere. Aviation automation has provided great social and technological benefits, but these benefits have not come without cost. In recent years, new problems in aircraft have emerged due to failures in the human-machine relationship. These incidents and accidents have motivated this inquiry into aviation automation. Similar problems in the air traffic management system are predicted as it becomes more fully automated. In particular, incidents and accidents have occurred which suggest that the principle problems with today's aviation automation are associated with its complexity, coupling, autonomy, and opacity. These problems are not unique to aviation; they exist in other highly dynamic domains as well. The author suggests that a different approach to automation -- called "human-centered automation" -- offers potential benefits for system performance by enabling a more cooperative human-machine relationship in the control and management of aircraft and air traffic.

The commercial aviation industry has many years of experience in the application of computer based human support systems, for example the flight management systems installed in today's advanced technology (''glass cockpit'') aircraft. This experience can be very helpful in the design and implementation of similar systems for nuclear power plants. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) sponsored a study at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL) to investigate pilot errors that occur during interaction with automated systems in advanced technology aircraft. In particular, we investigated the causes and potential corrective measures for pilot errors that resulted in altitude deviation incidents (i.e. failure to capture or maintain the altitude assigned by air traffic control). To do this, we analyzed altitude deviation events that have been reported in the Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS), NASA's data base of incidents self-reported by pilots and air traffic controllers. We developed models of the pilot tasks that are performed to capture and maintain altitude. Incidents from the ASRS data base were mapped onto the models, to highlight and categorize the potential causes of the errors. This paper reviews some of the problems that have resulted from the introduction of glass cockpit aircraft, the methodology used to analyze pilot errors, the lessons learned from the study of altitude deviation events, and the application of the results to the introduction of computer-based human support systems in nuclear power plants. In addition, a framework for using reliability engineering tools to incorporate lessons learned from operational experience into the design, construction, and operation of complex systems is briefly described.