Although cockpit automation is intended partly to give pilots more time to think about — and plan for — upcoming portions of a flight, the pilots may not be devoting all of that time to flight-related thoughts, a new study has found.
Some past studies have shown that, when pilots were queried while using automated cockpits, they sometimes were unable to answer basic questions or even to tell the questioner where they were.
Other studies showed that automation “can sometimes relieve pilots of tedious control tasks and afford them more time to think ahead,” said the report on the new study, conducted by Stephen M. Casner of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration Ames Research Center and Jonathan W. Schooler of the University of California, Santa Barbara. “Paradoxically, automation has also been shown to lead to lesser awareness. These results prompt the question of what pilots think about while using automation.”
To find out, Casner and Schooler designed a …
