What else about AUTOMATION?

            In Friday September 9^th 2011, I wrote down handful thoughts about what did I think about AUTOMATION in aviation. I also mentioned two main points discussing that. One was about how industry’s professionals agree on the necessity, reliability and efficiency of the technology advancements in any cockpit. The other point was pilots’ training and qualification programs and how they contribute to human performance’s overall excellence. And at the end, I talked about system safety theory and private sector efforts towards making skies safer and minimizing errors. So, here I am today. And I will be highlighting additional points along with providing some updated facts regarding this topic.

            I would begin first by emphasizing that aviation automation has become a major part of a movement in the in industry in which works to improve crew performance as well as to control flying risks. So, automation is, at the end, a tool that is supposed to provide pilots with MORE comfort, better performance, safety and FEWER problems. As a result, automation has also become a winning card for aviation firms to play with to stay competitive with each other as a very important business factor that could help determining any aviation business success. Now from a technical point of view, we know that any new technology needs a period of adaptation to successfully eliminate its problems and allow its users to adopt. Sometimes, this period could take several years like what happened when jets replaced propeller airplanes or when glass cockpits replaced classic ones. Harmonization between any new technology and human is the solution here, and without it, achieving optimum levels of safe and efficient flight operations becomes harder. That’s why the “adaptation period” I talked about previously is essential to introduce any new system. Otherwise “bad field experiences’ will eventually be the teacher! And that’s what sadly happens when we ignore the study of human reaction to new systems.

              Automation has suffered many problems for decades. One of which is the poor design in respect to pilot natural needs and mind-processing. In other words, instruments are “almost” designed without taking into consideration the psychological factors of human brains and how they function. Another problem is that automation helps increasing crew’s “poor situation awareness”. For instance, Flight Management Systems (FMS) or Flight Management Computers (FMC) make pilots lose their awareness of the passing of flight time and subsequently they lose their awareness of the flight path. Also, the lack of cooperation between cockpit technologies and the outside environment resulted in creating an aging impact on the required integration between all flight “agents”. But this ignorance has come to an end when both; regulatory bodies and private sectors have realized that projects such as System Safety in aviation (SS), NextGen and Crew Resource Management (CRM) are the tools for such an integration to take effect in the industry.

We live in a world of technology, that’s why automation is improving and keep changing and evolving every single day. A very basic autopilot for example, was first developed in 1912. However, although autopilots have hugely evolved since then, ICAO didn’t start enforcing utilizing autopilots and autoland equipment in +4 hours flights until the 1980’s when human factors including fatigue in aviation arose as a big argument regarding various accidents and incidents. Nowadays however, and according to a recent Concordia University Research, autopilots will soon become not only helpful in assisting pilots flying aircraft and minimizing their fatigue, but also will help making the industry more environmentally friendly. The research Professor Dr. Luis Rodrigues says: “More than 75% of commercial flight time worldwide is performed on autopilot.” It does in deed sound dangerous but this is why Dr. Rodrigues was attracted to study utilizing aviation automation in other purposes like environmental.

            Concordia’s research is an updated info about our topic. However, in terms of the over-dependence, I can see that this issue will remain a hot topic for years to come. Because simply, human error is still #1 cause behind aviation disasters. And as long as human error is in the picture, automation has something to do with human behavior in the cockpit especially during crucial phases like takeoff and landing. I also believe that deviation from procedural instructions by pilots and mechanics is a big factor too. I had experienced many incidents during my years in the maintenance field of the industry where over-dependence on automation came in a form of deviation from procedures. So, it is not only the automation itself as a technology that makes tragedies in aviation. I would suggest again that in order for the industry to minimize automation problems, aviation professionals must always adhere to rules and regulations, enhance and implement more situation awareness, and reinforce manual skills in both carrier and type-rating training programs. I can assure that the problem is not exaggerated. Even though with automation, performance has been improved and safety is remarkable. And the fact remains the same forever; better safety is always desirable.