Article citation information:
Volner, R. The possibility of increasing air
transport security via simulator training. Scientific
Journal of Silesian University of Technology. Series Transport. 2017, 95,
231-238.
ISSN: 0209-3324. DOI: https://doi.org/10.20858/sjsutst.2017.95.21.
Rudolf VOLNER[1]
THE POSSIBILITY OF INCREASING
AIR TRANSPORT SECURITY VIA SIMULATOR TRAINING
Summary. This article is dedicated to the art of improving safety in aviation in
response to stress in the aviation sector, as well as the impact of stress on
aviation and communications errors caused by ignorance of communication skills
needed at the required level. The first part is dedicated to safety management
systems, the second part is devoted to stress and the third part explores
communication errors, which have resulted in aviation accidents. The paper
concludes with a preview of a possible solutions known as “Virtual Airport”,
which enables you to use simulator systems in order to increase the
effectiveness level of training.
Keywords: air transport;
security; safety; simulator; training
1. INTRODUCTION
The aim of this article is to
explain the fundamental concepts and analysis of observed facts in order to
enhance the level of safety in flying, especially with regard to novice pilots.
Working as a professional pilot or
an air traffic control officer is undoubtedly stressful, being exposed to and
possibly causing real threats to human life.
With increasing traffic in the
airspace, there is a greater risk of conflict, which in turn increases the
intensity of crisis situations. This can result in a situation that is
unbearable, such that the body to react by experiencing stress.
2. SAFETY MANAGEMENT
SYSTEMS
Having a safety management system
(SMS) is a new requirement for organizations providing courses leading to the
issuance of appropriate licenses. The National Security Programme for Civil
Aviation in the Slovak Republic defines the concept as: “A systematic approach
to safety management, which includes the necessary organizational structures
[to] establish liability [and] determine the principles and practices” [5,6].
An organization involved in civil
aviation must have in place a management system that is integrated and has
clearly defined responsibilities, as well as identifying who has direct
responsibility for security, describing the approaches and principles of the
organization in this field, establishing a security policy etc.
An SMS comprises:
- Regulations governing operational safety (safety
regulation)
- Safety monitoring (safety oversight)[1]
- Incident and accident investigation
- Analysis of data security (safety data analysis)
- Safety enforcement (safety promotion) [5,6]
Among the benefits for an
organization resulting from its integration of an SMS into everyday activities
are:
- Improved safety and reduced costs associated with
aviation accidents and incidents
- Safety as a priority, which boosts morale among
employees
- Increased effectiveness, which is associated with a
reduction in costs
- An efficient system, which increases credibility
- Effective control of the risks, thereby lowering
insurance costs [5,6].
To ensure the successful operation
of the introduced system, it is necessary to ensure its continuous development
in all respects, as well as facilitate effective methods of communication
between all levels of the organization.
Each SMS system must be prepared by
the personnel management. Any organization that wants to meet the requirements of
regulations and be approved by the competent authority must appoint an officer
who is responsible for security, usually the head of security. This is
essential if an organization is to comply with established safety regulations.
A committee for the review of safety or, where appropriate, an action group for
safety should be established.
The principal tasks are to:
- Report to and receive strategic guidance from the
committee
- Monitor operating safety
- Address the identified risks
- Evaluate the impact of changes to operational safety
- Ensure that security measures will be implemented
within the agreed time intervals
- Examine the effectiveness of previous recommendations
[4]
- Meanwhile, an SMS ensures the following:
- A security policy
- The extent of liability regarding the responsible head
of security
- The range of responsibilities of the key personnel in
the field of security
- Procedures for managing documentation
- Scheme hazard identification and management of
security risks
- Planning security activities
- A process for reporting and investigating incidents
- Planning responses in the event of an emergency
- Management of change
- Supporting safety
- Tracking system conformity
3. STRESS
IN AIR TRANSPORT
Stress is a response of the organism to adverse effects under burdensome
conditions. It is thus a response to internal or external stimuli, which
disrupt normal, stabilized operation functions of the organism, or even
endanger them. Triggering elements of stress are called stressors.
Among the most important stressors
in aviation is the risk of a traumatic experience. But stress can also elicit
outwardly less severe stressors, such as hunger, disease and difficulty in
solving complex problems.
However, in today’s aviation world,
it is only in very rare situations where we encounter threats to life. Usually,
pilots and dispatchers refer to high physical and mental demands, in which
bodies react differently to burden. The difference between load and stress is
quite striking. In long-term and repeated stressful situations, a human’s
health demonstrably deteriorates, due to a load that may be impossible to bear.
Furthermore, some humans can resist a stressful load, thus postponing the time
when the impact of stress will be felt. On the other hand, in air transport, we
certainly encounter an extraordinary load.
Such a load can be divided into:
- Physiological:
o dragging
o climate extremes
o disruption of biorhythms
- Psychosocial:
o responsibility
o a life-changing event
o poor social networks
Stress at the start of training is
normal for pilots. Initially, students are receiving a considerable amount of
information in the course of undertaking various tasks, which is a situation
that their organism has never before encountered. Understandably, it is natural
for them to feel under stress. However, this stressful condition must be
mastered in the shortest possible time, so as not to cultivate fear or
nervousness in ongoing training.
Each pilot must fully understand the
airplane that he or she wants to fly. As part of basic training, they must show
that they can cope with mandatory actions. That is to say, there is an exact
algorithm that the pilot must fully adhere in order to maintain control during
the individual phases of a flight. Such procedures must be mastered by each
pilot before entering the booth. A student can master the mandatory actions
perfectly in turn, but, once on board the plane, he or she may become confused.
The explanation is quite simple. As
it is a completely new environment for the student, the organism has not yet
become used to the procedures that accompany it. A relatively significant role
is played by euphoria. Since the student has reached a long-awaited goal, or
fulfilled a dream, the organism produces a feeling of happiness. Such an
influence significantly decreases concentration, which is why the student
begins to feel confused. Experiencing all this in the first days of training
may influence stress, with the amount of short-term concentration among pilots
increasing on the job. However, this increase is usually short lived and
followed by stress.
Fear is one of the most significant
stressors during basic training. In the main, trainee pilots will have had no
previous practical experience. Thus, any unexpected changes can induce a stress
reaction in the form of starting to fear. Such a situation may cause, for
example. an unexpected rotor turbulence.
However, in the beginning, a pilot
can also experience a fear of the ground. This is a situation when the
aircraft, in final approach mode with landing configurations in place,
substantially hurtles directly to ground. Such a stressor is manifested when
the pilot subconsciously “overloads” an action, which he or she must then
correct, thereby further increasing stress. The resulting application of thrust
risks the air stream on the wings being too great, causing a “hard” landing.
4. COMMUNICATIONS AND ERRORS
Communication in aviation a century
ago was not taken for granted. As an airplane in the sky was unique, it was neither
necessary to observe any separation, nor heed the danger of collisions between
aircraft. After World War II, however, the situation changed; with an
increasing number of aircraft and the formation of the first commercial
companies, the sky gradually began to fill up with planes, such that it was
necessary to regulate these aircraft.
In today’s world, communication is a
necessity in order to ensure the minimum degree of separation for aircraft
coming into land.
We must realize that an airplane
moves in three-dimensional space. Flights and routes involving commercial
aircraft, despite pilots having received the most advanced training and access
to sophisticated apparatus, can often occur in some of the worst weather
conditions. This means that the pilot may not actually be able to see where he
or she is flying, which means that his or her safety is in the hands of the
control centre dispatcher.
The dispatcher’s job then is to
ensure the minimum degree of separation between aircraft and to gradually enable
them to safely reach their intended destination. In other words, the job is
more than just communicating.
Communication is primarily an
information transfer. The basis of communications between people is speech
transmission. In classical communications, a number of inaccurate and ambiguous
concepts are used, whose meanings can take several forms and are therefore not
clear. Hence, within a professional communication context, standardized
procedures have been produced, such that a given application or an answer to a
question can be accurately determined by a specific formula and not “on the
hoof”.
Of course, cases occur when the
standardized formulations are avoided; but, in conventional processes, these
are unlikely to happen. Furthermore, aviation involves precisely fixed radio
communications, which pilots must control according to Regulation JAR-FCL 1 and
Regulation L9432 [1,2,3].
Novice pilots who are receiving
their initial private pilot’s licence training initially communicate with the
help of instructors. Obviously, in Slovakia, pilots engaged in basic training
use Slovak to communicate. It is highly advantageous if pilots can communicate
in their native language to minimize confusion about what message is being
conveyed.
Air communications in Slovak
requires a Slovak radiotelephony alphabet, which each cadet should be familiar
with prior to control training. However, while acquiring this knowledge is
required before a pilot’s certificate can be issued, so that pilots can use a
radiotelephone on their first solo flight, at the start of their training, they
do not even know the call sign of their aircraft.
It is very important for
communications training to be ongoing. The exact phraseology regarding air
communication, according to which pilots interact, is described in Regulation
L9432 on radiotelephone procedures and air phraseology. It is important, then,
for flying schools to teach their students how to communicate and how much time
they should spend on improving their skills in this area.
In the history of aviation, there
have only been a few large or small accidents, whose partial or total cause was
an error in communications. One of such regulations issued on the basis of the
investigation of air accidents is also a prescription issued by ICAO, wherein
after ‘aircraft specifically calls for knowledge of the English language at the
appropriate level The effort of this Regulation is to avoid misunderstandings
and erroneous understanding that result from communication errors at the level
of international aviation.
5. VIRTUAL AIRPORT OF COMPANY LET'S FLY
The
simulation is often used for training civilian and military personnel. This
usually occurs in the event that it is too expensive or too dangerous for
students use the actual device in the real world. Getting some valuable
experience in "a secure" virtual surroundings. Preferably, also the
errors that the system in training in safety - critical systems allows. But
there is nevertheless a difference between sham used for training and instructional
simulations.
Flight simulators (FSTD) are used to
train pilots on the ground. In comparison to training in a real airplane,
enables the stimulation training practice different maneuvers or situations
that are for practicing airplane impractical (or even dangerous) in which pilot
and instructor are in an environment which can be characterized as an
environment with minimal risk. E.g. failure of electrical systems, failure of
equipment, the failure of hydraulic systems, or even a failure to control the
flight can be simulated without endangering the pilot or aircraft.
“Virtual airport” is conceived as a
classroom for education and training aviation specialists.
The principal elements are:
- Desktop System simulator 1-4,
- A simulator system C172 BITD (Basic Instrument
Training Device),
- Control Instructor workplace,
- Transfer system.
Between various elements of the
system is to help the computer network Internet or Intranet.
The transmission system is designed
to allow interconnection at management and data transfer between subsystems
specified. The transmission is duplex, interacting, what is needed mainly for
interconnection of instructor workplace with individual subsystems.
On this basis, a “virtual airport”
convenient to use for simulating teaching and training:
- Radiocommunication on different types of airports and
language versions,
- operating procedures,
- Coordination of pilots in the airport area.
Fig. 1 Virtual airport – small simulators
Fig. 2 Virtual airport – instructor station
Fig. 3 Virtual airport – papers information
Fig. 4 Virtual airport – simulator C 172
6. CONCLUSION
Everyone handles stress differently
and particular situations can bring about different degrees of difficulty for
different people. For example, working under a strict timeline can be a
stressor for one person and normal for another. People cope with stress in many
different ways. Specialists say that the first step is to identify stressors
and the symptoms that occur after exposure to those stressors. Other recommendations
involve development or maintenance of a healthy lifestyle with adequate
rest and exercise, a healthy diet, limited consumption of alcoholic drinks, and
avoidance of tobacco products. The profession professional pilot or the air
traffic control officer is undoubtedly stressful profession. Historically,
twenty percent of all accidents are caused by a machine failure, and eighty
percent of all accidents are caused by human factors.
Current solutions and technology
like Safety Management System concept and Simulator Trainings are helping
pilots with improving safety and stress mitigation. A lot of research and
development in this area has been already made however new technology and
future transport challenges demands to continue scientific researches.
Article was developed
within the project solutions TA04031376 "“Research / development
methodology training aviation specialists L410UVP-E20"”. TA 04031376
project is solved with financial support from TA CR.
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Received 15.03.2017; accepted in revised form 05.05.2017
Scientific Journal of Silesian
University of Technology. Series Transport is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
[1] LET’S FLY s.r.o., Ostrava
International Airport 403, 74251 Mošnov, Czech Republic. Email:
rudolf.volner@letsfly.cz