NATCA Bookshelf

HUMAN PERFORMANCE Jay Barrett (MIA) is the Article 114 Representative for Human Performance. His report is below. Human Factors Activities My recent trip to the UK yielded great results. Not only from a connections perspective but also from an informational perspective. I spent Saturday meeting with members of NATS human performance team. They have a considerable team of 29 people who do a lot of work for the company. NATS as a business entity is convinced that this group is adding extreme value to the operation. By comparison we have 9 including me. They employ a number of scientists as well as researchers and operational personnel. I was encouraged to find out that many of the items on my "to do" list for our HP office are things that they have either already done or are in the process of working on currently. One item that we are developing, that they have made the decision to steer clear of is the health and wellness program. They allow their CISM folks to dabble in that area, but they try to steer clear of issues involving what they perceive to be mental health issues. I explained the focus of our program is more along the lines of providing workshops and information to assist controllers in navigating a 30 year career that is very demanding and requires forethought and planning, as well as making good choices over the long term. They are now interested in seeing what it looks like. Monday -Wednesday was the CIEHF (Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors) conference. Lots of ANSP specific presentations. There were also a number of military research talks and some about UAS and maintenance operations. Mostly though it centered on air traffic. Important discussions and my takeaways: Human Performance Standard of Excellence - this was a briefing on a paper completed by the FAA and Eurocontrol. It focuses on 12 elements that are ranked from 1 to 5 for ANSPs to assess how they are performing on that scale. I worked with Jason on assessing the FAA last year. There is a steering committee that will be concentrating on 3 areas by which to create standardized benchmarks for ANSPs to attain, from a human performance perspective. Remote Towers -This professor did an experiment where he compared the actions of controllers at a live air traffic facility and a high fidelity simulator in Spain. The study found that the controllers in the simulator did not stand to verify VFR aircraft inbound or taxiing, even though they had hi def video screens. They also forgot to turn on runway lights when it became dark outside. They also did not take required weather observations. Most interesting was that during the study there were 3 reported runway incursions and the investigation and analysis listed as a contributing factor that the controllers in the simulator environment felt too relaxed and did not place enough emphasis on the reality of what they were doing. They felt it was an artificial environment. Wake Turbulence separation minima - This SESAR computer tool was tested to see if using aircraft type rather than aircraft class would increase runway capacity. It is understood the ICAO wake turbulence categories are over restrictive in many cases and this tool strives to provide spacing to the controller working the final that is more appropriate. This tool factors in compression as well and provides target indications on

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