Acquisition of expertise in the Airbus 320

When a pilot transitions to a new airplane, he or she must complete a rigorous training program. If the airplane is highly automated, the pilot will receive training in the use of the autoflight system. Autoflight mode management is the process involved in understanding the character and consequences of autoflight modes, planning and selecting engagement, disengagement and transitions between modes, and anticipating automatic mode transitions made by the autoflight system itself. There is widespread agreement in the aviation industry that pilots do not acquire a complete understanding of the more advanced features of the autoflight system in training. In fact, some airlines do not attempt to teach highly automated lateral navigation (LNAV) or vertical navigation (VNAV) modes in training. It is left for the pilots to learn how to use these functions while flying on the line.

Fortunately, it appears that pilots do continue to learn about the more complex functions of modern state-of-the-art airplanes long after they leave the training center. Much of what pilots know about autoflight is learned while flying in revenue service. Many pilots say it takes about 12-18 months of flying in revenue service to get comfortable with the automation. One senior Boeing 767 captain estimated that he learned approximately 60-70% of what he knows about autoflight functions while flying on the line. A typical account is that a pilot may go through three stages of automation use:

§ In the first six months of experience the pilot is afraid of the automation and therefore makes too little use of it.

§ In the next six months of flying the pilot gains confidence and tries to use the automation to solve every problem, thereby using the automation in inappropriate ways.

§ Finally, the pilot understands what the automation does and what it does not do, and begins to use the automation to make the job easier only when it is appropriate to do so.

While support for this progression is anecdotal, many pilots voice the beliefs contained in it. In addition to this anecdotal evidence, there is solid research data on attitudes toward automation that indicate that pilots are sometimes confused by the behavior of the autoflight system (Weiner, 1989; Woods and Sarter, 1998; Hutchins et al. 1999). Earlier studies conducted in airline cockpits and in simulators has shown that the behavior of the autoflight system in operational circumstances can be baffling (Wiener, 1989; Palmer, 1994). In an industry-wide review of perceived human factors problems of flight deck automation, Funk, Lyall, and Riley (1996) showed that the complexity of automation and failures of pilot understanding of automation were thought by industry professionals to be major problems. Sarter and Woods (1992, 1994, 1995) have documented failures of pilot understanding of autoflight modes via both observational and experimental methods.

In addition to data on attitudes toward automation, there is also a small amount of data on the content of pilots’ understanding of autoflight systems (Sarter and Woods, 1994). The relative scarcity of data on the concepts used by pilots to understand the autoflight systems is due in part to the complexity of the autoflight systems. Researchers need considerable technical expertise to even begin to assess what pilots know or do not know about these systems. This complexity is also responsible for the fact that the more complex autoflight functions are often not taught in airline training programs. A recent survey of airline training programs claimed that “none of the training courses [examined] provided a coherent overview of the structure of the system, followed by progressively more detailed information. Instead, most of the courses offered a very brief outline of the system (one or two schematics and a couple of paragraphs) and then plunged into a great deal of depth on specific elements.” (Damos, 1998)

At present, no one knows what is being learned by pilots after they leave the training center and enter revenue service. Observations from the jumpseat suggest that what is learned includes conceptual reorganization, tuning of skills, and reassurance that what is known is sufficient to operate the airplane safely in the real flight environment.

The goal of this research project was to discover how pilots' understanding of flight deck automation develops over the course of initial training and through early stages of operating experience. We hope to document what is learned, when it is learned and how it is learned. Presumably, what pilots actually do is related to how they think about autoflight, which is in turn related to what they know about autoflight. To date, there has been no systematic study of what pilots actually do know about autoflight. The first goal of this project was to use primarily ethnographic methods to determine how pilots conceive of autoflight mode management (especially vertical mode management).

In the face of this complexity and the problems it seems to cause, pilots should and do apparently develop and use simplified models of what the autoflight system is doing. Another of the goals of this project is to provide simple conceptual models of autoflight functions that can be the basis for the content of more effective autoflight training.

We had planned to follow 15 pilots at a major airline from their entry into transition training for the Airbus A320 through the first eighteen months of flying on the line. Unfortunately, our data collection activities were brought to an end by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. At that time, only four of our participants had reached the 18 month mark. Seven had flown for a year, two had transferred to other airplanes, and two had reached the six month mark. Even with these partial data, we were able to reach most of our goals.