Abstract
The military goal of Global Reach - Global Power entails an unprecedented dependence on immediate and sustained long range bombing campaigns. This research effort was initiated to evaluate the feasibility of this type of long range operation by studying the effects of multiple long duration missions on bomber aircrews. Measures of cognitive performance, mood, fatigue, and sleep management suggest that crews learned to adapt to the missions. However, cognitive performance deteriorated during the early morning hours of each mission and expert ratings of flight deck performance suggest that some components of performance may have been negatively impacted by the repeated missions. This research contributes to the base of information that may be used to make operational risk decisions and suggests ways to reduce schedule-related risks. It also explores the effects of sustained operations on complex tasks, as well as on simple tasks, and explores the use of multiple data collection techniques in a non-laboratory setting.
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