Research Review

Airbus Stick Technique

By Dave English

I normally write about ideas that apply to flying any aircraft. But today is different. This is Airbus specific. Very specific! Recently read a couple of peer-reviewed scientific research papers that do a great job parsing Airbus stick skills and fine-grain aircraft control. I’ve learnt some new things, confirmed some suspicions, but still have questions. The four topics are: Where to hold the side stick? Separate up/down and left/right inputs, or move the stick in 2-D? Aim for perfectly centered or smoothly tracking? What else did the researchers learn? The main research paper is Stirring the Pot: Comparing Stick Input … Continue reading Airbus Stick Technique

Psychological skills of elite military pilots

By Dave English

Fifteen highly-rated pilots were interviewed at a Royal Canadian Air Force base by university psychology researchers as part of a larger longer project on how master performers differ from those of us that are merely ‘good’. Some of the results were published in 2014 — Examining the Psychological Skills Used by Elite Canadian Military Pilots — and it makes for interesting reading. “Your focus narrows and you’re not thinking about other stuff. I can have outside stresses at home and it won’t affect me … as soon as I get into the plane I don’t think about it anymore until I’m on the ground.” Participant … Continue reading Psychological skills of elite military pilots

New research on meditating F-16 fighter pilots

By Dave English

New peer-reviewed scientific research suggests mindfulness mental training helps F-16 fighter pilots. It’s in the latest edition of the International Journal of Aviation Psychology, and describes a long-term (2-year) study using Norwegian F-16 pilots. These high-performance combat-rated pilots show a increase in self-perceived skills associated with mindfulness, attention regulation and arousal regulation following a regime of mindfulness training. Alone it’s not the greatest study, due to self-reporting qualitative measures and lack of a control group, but in talking to the lead author I’ve learned much more is coming. Anders Meland is a researcher at the Norwegian Institute of Aviation Medicine and … Continue reading New research on meditating F-16 fighter pilots