Analog erfaring før overgang til digital cockpit en fordel

Analog experience instrumental to pilot safety


PhD student Sravan Pingali in a flight simulator with David Newman, head of Swinburne's Aviation Simulation Laboratory. Source: Supplied

INITIAL results into a study into the way pilots look at digital and analog instruments suggest experienced pilots facing an emergency will spend twice as much time looking at their instruments as novices.

The study by PhD student ­Sravan Pingali is testing volunteers in Swinburne University of Technology's flight simulators to see how pilots cope with the switch between digital and analog cockpits.

The results will be presented to the Aerospace Medical Association conference in Orlando, ­Florida, in May and the head of Swinburne's Aviation Simulation Laboratory, David Newman, hopes it will produce recommendations for improved pilot training globally.

There is evidence pilots who have trained on analog instruments generally find it easier to move to a digital cockpit than vice versa.

According to Dr Newman, this is because pilots using older ­instruments scan them constantly in a highly disciplined sequence to create a picture of what an aircraft is doing and constantly updating it.