Pilot Fatigue Essay

No pilot is immune to fatigue. All pilots need the required rest to maintain their alertness and performance to function at their highest level. Part 121 flights and rest time are controlled the most because pilots are scheduled by taking into account rest schedules and previous duty schedules. Part 135 rest times are the same as Part 121, but allow more flight time per calendar year, month, and seven consecutive days. Part 91 in general are less stringent because pilots are normally weekend flyers and do not fly as many days as Part 121 and Part 135 pilots. All pilots, no matter which Part the fly under, should maintain regular sleep habits, avoid caffeine and alcohol before bedtime, and avoid going to bed hungry. Pilots should keep fit, eat regular meals, control emotional and psychological aspects of their life, and prepare for

If you have a love for the sky and aviation is one of your interests, you're not deterred from being in charge of at times more than 100 lives, and you have a soft spot for exploring the world than becoming an airline pilot is for you. Airline pilots have one of the coolest, most exciting nerve racking jobs out there. My goal for this paper is to explain all about how to become an airline pilot, what it takes to become one, the facts about the job, and some pros and cons of being in the field. My interest in flying was harbored as a child during vacations, my mother is a flight attendant so we traveled often. Whenever entering an airplane I was at awe of the sheer number of controls in the cockpit and the

In todays society it is no longer a question but a fact that pilot fatigue is a major threat to flight safety. Fatigue has been cited as a factor in several accidents and serious incidents in recent years. Over the last decade a substantial amount of research and case studies have been conducted on fatigue and pilot performance. All of which have scientifically proven that fatigue reduces the physical and mental awareness of one’s ability to operate a plane safely. This is due to the long duty days, circadian disruptions from night flying, time zone changes leading to jet lag, stressors, and insufficient rest or sleep periods. In general, these studies have shown that a fatigued person may lose up to 80% of his or her attention capabilities

Review the FAA’s regulations (FARs) regarding duty day limits for FAR Part 121, Part 135, and Part 91 flight operations. Next, analyze and evaluate the differences in the regulations between Parts by creatively applying the concepts of human performance and limitations that you learned in this module. Finally, develop and support your opinion as to whether the differences in the regulations are justified in regard to maintaining aviation safety. As always, support your work with a reliable source(s).

A 2006 survey of short haul pilots revealed that 75% believed they had fatigue bad enough to be considered severe while operating an aircraft. When comparing to the previous two years, 81% reported that their fatigue while on duty had worsened. In addition, the pilots stated that their general overall health, including physical and psychological, had been negatively impacted (Jackson & Earl, 2006).

Ensuring the safety and integrity of the U.S. National airspace system is contingent on ensuring consistent and reliable performance of the Air Traffic Controllers ultimately charged with the safety and security of that system. Aviation is a very safety critical industry that is fundamentally reliant on the people who interact and operate within the system. People are human and subject to fatigue. Managing the effects of fatigue is a large part of managing people and their performance. In order to manage fatigue, a working understanding of the risks to performance that fatigue poses must be attained.

The purpose of this research paper is to show how fatigue effects all working industries but it will discuss primarily the aviation industry jobs including fatigue among pilots, cabin crew, maintenance personal, and Air Traffic Controllers. The goal is to show that when fatigue is present in the aviation world safety is jeopardized. This has been done by examining the effects fatigue has on the human body and how it dramatically impacts productivity, performance, and safety. Upon examining these effects, it becomes clear that with aviation being an around the clock operation fatigue will never be completely eliminated, but with organizations acknowledging the physiological challenges fatigue causes they could produce procedures and policies

Generally, human fatigue is a cause of other deficiencies, such as poor judgment and decision-making, slowed reaction time, increased lapses in memory, difficulty focusing, loss of situation awareness and poor performance. Fatigue is a serious issue can impair every aspect of pilot capability and affecting the safety of air transportation (Lerman et al., 2012). In this experiment, fatigue experienced by pilots was compared between a flight mission with multiple take-offs and landings versus a flight mission of equal duration with a single take-off and landing. Eight active rated pilots (4 Expert and 4 Novices; age range 24– 33) participated in the study. Each pilot flew a medium-fidelity, full-flight (motion) Boeing-52 flight simulator during

Fatigue according to Ricci, Chee, Lorandeau, and Berger (2007) is defined as a lack of energy with a feeling of exhaustion and lethargy. The problem is so prominent fatigue affects approximately 7%-45% of the population (p. 1). Unfortunately, fatigue does not affect all shifts equally, Berger and Hobbs (2005) defines night shift workers as those who work outside the daylight hours of 6am-6pm and who are more susceptible to the deleterious effects of fatigue. Their research found that 16.8% of the United States workforce and 24.6% of healthcare professionals participate in night shift work, and while that percentage may seem small, the negative effects of nightshift work related fatigue accounts for over 70% of all accidents and injuries (Scott, Hofmeister, Rogness, & Rogers,

Something that characterizes fatigue, namely in aviation, are the increasing number of errors that may endanger the flight safety (Cabon et al., 2012; Federal Aviation Administration, 2012). To better understand the impact of fatigue on flight operations, it is important to gain insight into how each factor contributes to fatigue, and more importantly, how the effects of fatigue may negatively affect the pilots’ capabilities to cope with those situations. There are two primary categories of fatigue measures, objective measures which include physiological as well as performance, and subjective measures, which include self-assessment. Objective measures of physiological responses related to fatigue include eye movement

The fatigue associated with working the night shift was brought into the spotlight after an aircraft incident that occurred on June 10, 1990. British Airways flight 5390 had just departed from Birmingham International Airport when the aircraft experienced a rapid pressure loss due to the pilot’s windshield blowing out of the aircraft. This resulted in the pilot being sucked halfway out of the aircraft and another flight crew member grabbing the pilots belt and holding him from being sucked completely out while the copilot to take control of the aircraft and land it safely at a nearby airport. The official findings of the accident investigation linked the windshield blowout to the wrong size bolts being installed. The bolts were installed early in the morning hours and the fatigued shift maintenance manager who installed them didn’t recognize that they were the wrong bolts. He thought that the countersinking on the window was unusually large (Baron, 2009). This is just one example of mistakes made on night shift due to fatigue. Fatigue is a dangerous human factor that is present in the aircraft maintenance community.

The retention of pilots is becoming a crisis for business airlines, commercial airlines, and military leading to the situation to only get worse. The aviation industry will only grow from this point on due to its key advantages for its transportation and with that, a larger number of pilots will be needed. This becomes one of the stress factors that comes with the job for pilots along with many others. The stress may be too much for pilots that it’s even causing them to decline hefty retention bonuses. As you can see many factors affect this shortage of pilots and I see it as the problem worsening in the future if no solutions are found to resolve this issue.

The purpose of this study is to examine the performance of pilots flying multiple types of aircraft in an experimental setting. Pilot performance will be assessed by written tests and simulator sessions. This study will build on a previous field study, Pilots Flying Multiple Aircraft Types or Multiple Flightdeck Layouts, which was conducted for AVS 4504 Aviation Safety Analysis. The results of that study showed a need for a simulator study to further identify if pilots have issues maintaining currency in multiple types of aircraft.

The topic that to be presented in this research paper is the effect of long-term space flight. A flight that takes place in space for months or even years certainly has an impact on crew members’ conditions, both physically and psychologically. First and foremost, the major difference in the environment between the space and what the crew members are used to is the degree of gravity. Although in the actually spacecraft, zero gravity is countered by the artificial gravity generated to ensure crew members’ mobility, astronauts still live and work in an environment with little senses of stability and weight. Scientists have done experiments in Earth orbit that indicate weightless environment is deleterious to human body to a certain extent. (http://www.iop.org/resources/topic/archive/spacetravel/) Having

Stress is an everyday reality in the aviation industry, especially to pilots. Pilots face different kinds of stress on the job. Overload and underload on pilots is common and has always been overlooked. As a result, poses a threat to aviation safety. The society should pay a considerable attention to this issue. This essay will discuss the effect of stress on pilot performance and ways to relief stress. It begins with definitions of stress, then it will mention the causes of stress. The essay then explores on the relevance to aviation industry. Finally, the essay will give suggestions on how to cope with stress. As a future commercial airline pilot, this topic has great relevance as stress could not be avoided in the aviation industry. It