Pilots' Attitudes to Cockpit Automation

Abstract

This paper reports the results of a survey of UK civil pilots' attitudes to automation on the flight deck. The progressive automation of cockpit systems has been motivated by the requirement for more efficient, safer flight. However, increasing automation in civil cockpits has created much controversy. A confidential 78 item attitude survey was distributed to all licensed UK civil pilots (in excess of 11000). Attitudes were recruited on eleven areas from general attitudes to specific aspects of flying skills, workload, crew interaction, feedback, and training. Over 1372 completed questionnaires were returned with 572 from ‘glass cockpit’ pilots. The attitude responses from glass cockpit pilots were subjected to principal components analysis. This analysis identified four factors that account for over 31% of the variance. These factors address aspects of understanding, workload, skills, and design. The use of these data to help guide future developments in integrated cockpit automation will be discussed.