Aviation Safety and Human Factors

The School of Aerospace, Civil & Mechanical Engineering has been involved with research into military and civil airline safety program training, assessment and evaluation technique development. Sue Burdekin, an aviation psychology and human factors researcher, is working with the Australian Defence Force to develop behavioural markers and to design methodology that will assess aircrew non-technical performance in flight. Scientific experiments have been conducted in the F/A-18 and B707 simulators at Williamtown and Richmond Air Force Bases. Recently this work, in collaboration with Airbus, has moved from a military into a civil aviation arena. The scientific data gathering has also progressed from the controlled environment of an aircraft simulator into the operational environment of the flight deck on regular public transport flights. Sue has been working with easyJet, a low cost airline based in Europe to determine whether air crew self-evaluation and automatic flight monitoring is a reliable safety measure. Data have been collected from pilots and observers during sixty short haul flight sectors throughout Europe and the UK . Preliminary results have indicated support for the program and a further, more comprehensive civil study is planned.

Contact: Sue Burdekin