Planning Your Way to Consistently Better Outcomes

This is the second in a series of posts that will provide, throughout the whole year, an improvement strategy that will cover the entire family of 9 Automation Airmanship® principles. This post lays out some strategies that crews can use on their very next flight to achieve expert results. “…Experts really do ‘see’ problems differently… …

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A Year of Improving Airmanship

This is the first of a series of posts that will provide, throughout the whole year, an improvement strategy that will cover the entire family of Nine Automation Airmanship® principles. This first post lays out the guidelines for a year of steady, disciplined improvement. The New Year always brings us to a point of reflecting on …

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Making the Non-Routine, Routine

If there is one single maneuver that each of us should expect to be able to execute on any given flight leg, that involves an understanding of each of the 9 Principles of Automation Airmanship, it is the Go-Around. We’re not talking about the go-around maneuver that each of us practiced in training (you know …

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Modern Automation: A Force to be Reckoned with

For over a decade we have been advocating a systematic yet simplified approach to the automated flight deck environment. When we first introduced Automation Airmanship in 2004, we were focused on providing aviation professionals with a sound, disciplined and repeatable methodology to apply to encounters with flight deck technology, from the most rudimentary to the …

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Why Automate?

For a few months we’ve been writing and commenting on flight deck monitoring, automation bias, and how the human operator can adopt habits and patterns that keep them “in the loop” during high-risk/high-reliability operations on the modern flight deck. Hopefully we have drawn readers into a closer relationship with the equipment they operate. We want …

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Monitor Smart, Part 2: The Monitoring “Must Do” List

In the last post, we promised to provide a knowledge-based “do-list” of what to monitor, by phase of flight, every time you fly. Being able to adopt these guidelines, however, presupposes that you have already bought-in to the required “systems knowledge” that allows knowledge-based monitoring to be successful (if you have not, you can review …

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Monitor Smart, Part 1: Automation Bias

One of my most persistent curiosities is in finding a new way to describe something that I thought I knew enough about already. In support of this urge, the journals I subscribe to pile up on my desk weekly, waiting to be opened and scoured for new knowledge that I can apply to my own …

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The Fifth Principle Finally Gets its Due

If you are the kind of person who is intent on understanding current industry findings in the context of how it impacts you and your operation, then we have an end-of-the-year retrospective that will give you more than just a “year in review” wrap-up. For over a decade we have been giving voice to the …

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The Real Future of Flying

One of our goals in maintaining this blog is to help keep the focus of our profession on the flying. This task is increasingly difficult in the face of so much commentary on the future of human-machine interaction, much of it following the high profile aviation accidents of the past 5 years. More than at …

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Keeping Up With Rapid Change

I view one of the purposes of this blog as keeping readers informed on what trends we think deserve your consideration in both helping with ongoing issues on the automated flight deck and preparing pilots for the challenge of adapting to new technology that even a few years ago might have been unheard of. To …

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