Research papers

Development of a Bayesian Belief Network Runway Incursion and Excursion Model

In a previous work, a statistical analysis of runway incursion (RI) event data was conducted to ascertain the relevance of this data to the top ten Technical Challenges (TC) of the National Aeronautics and Space Administ…

Modeling Increased Complexity and the Reliance on Automation: FLightdeck Automation Problems (FLAP) Model

This paper highlights the development of a model that is focused on the safety issue of increasing complexity and reliance on automation systems in transport category aircraft.

Uncertainty Analysis for the Evaluation of a Passive Runway Arresting System

This paper considers the stopping distance of an aircraft involved in a runway overrun incident when the runway has been provided with an extension comprised of a material engineered to induce high levels of rolling fric…

Wake Turbulence Mitigation for Arrivals (WTMA)

The preliminary Wake Turbulence Mitigation for Arrivals (WTMA) concept of operations is described in this paper. The WTMA concept provides further detail to work initiated by the Wake Vortex Avoidance System Concept Eval…

Criteria Relating Wake Vortex Encounter Hazard to Aircraft Response

Piloted six-degree-of-freedom motion simulator investigations were conducted at the NASA Ames Research Center to determine criteria relating the hazard posed by a wake vortex encounter to the response of the encountering…

Terrain Portrayal for Head-Down Displays Flight Test

The Synthetic Vision Systems General Aviation (SVS-GA) element of NASA's Aviation Safety Program is developing technology to eliminate low visibility induced General Aviation (GA) accidents through the application of syn…

Synthetic Vision CFIT Experiments for GA and Commercial Aircraft: "A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Lives"

Because restricted visibility has been implicated in the majority of commercial and general aviation accidents, solutions will need to focus on how to enhance safety during instrument meteorological conditions (IMC).

Synthetic Vision Enhanced Surface Operations and Flight Procedures Rehearsal Tool

Limited visibility has been cited as predominant causal factor for both Controlled-Flight-Into-Terrain (CFIT) and runway incursion accidents.

Aircraft Loss of Control Study

Loss of control has become the leading cause of jet fatalities worldwide. Aside from their frequency of occurrence, accidents resulting from loss of aircraft control seize the public s attention by yielding large numbers…

Aircraft Loss-of-Control Accident Analysis

Loss of control remains one of the largest contributors to fatal aircraft accidents worldwide. Aircraft loss-of-control accidents are complex in that they can result from numerous causal and contributing factors acting a…

Aircraft Accident Prevention: Loss-of-Control Analysis

The majority of fatal aircraft accidents are associated with loss-of-control . Yet the notion of loss-of-control is not well-defined in terms suitable for rigorous control systems analysis.

CAST Safety Enhancement Research on Airplane State Awareness and Prediction Technologies

Loss of control in flight (LOC-I) is the leading cause of fatal aircraft accidents. A study of LOC accidents and incidents, commissioned by the Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST) identified a growing trend in loss of…

Design Considerations for Attitude State Awareness and Prevention of Entry into Unusual Attitudes

Loss of control - inflight (LOC-I) has historically represented the largest category of commercial aviation fatal accidents. A review of the worldwide transport airplane accidents (2001-2010) evinced that loss of attitud…

Analyzing a Mid-Air Collision Over the Hudson River

On August 8, 2009, a private airplane collided with a sightseeing helicopter over the Hudson River near Hoboken, New Jersey. All three people aboard the airplane, the pilot and two passengers, and all six people aboard t…

NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System

A comprehensive study of near midair collisions in terminal airspace, derived from the ASRS database is presented. A selection of controller and pilot reports on airport perimeter security, unauthorized takeoffs and land…

Development of Possible Go-Around Criteria for Transport Aircraft

This paper adds data to help with the development of possible go-around criteria for transport category aircraft. Presently, airline procedures state that pilots make a go-around decision using multiple criteria at 1000 …

Stabilized Approach Criteria: Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Practice

Approach and landing is the most common phase of flight for aviation accidents, accounting annually for approximately 65 percent of all accidents.

Enhanced/Synthetic Vision and Head-Worn Display Technologies for Terminal Maneuvering Area NextGen Operations

NASA is researching innovative technologies for the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) to provide a "Better-Than-Visual" (BTV) capability as adjunct to "Equivalent Visual Operations" (EVO); that is, airp…

TCAS Alerts from Simulated Urban Air Mobility Flights Along FAA Helicopter Routes in Dallas-Fort Worth

This is a presentation of the current state of a TCAS study being conducted by the ATM-X project. This study examines the rate at which an urban air mobility vehicle flying along existing helicopter routes near DFW will …

A TCAS-II Resolution Advisory Detection Algorithm

The Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) is a family of airborne systems designed to reduce the risk of mid-air collisions between aircraft.

The Emergency Landing Planner Experiment

In previous work, we described an Emergency Landing Planner (ELP) designed to assist pilots in choosing the best emergency landing site when damage or failures occur in an aircraft.

Windshear detection and avoidance - Airborne systems survey

Functional requirements for airborne windshear detection and warning systems are discussed in terms of the threat posed to civil aircraft operations.

Airborne Doppler radar detection of low altitude windshear

As part of an integrated windshear program, the Federal Aviation Administration, jointly with NASA, is sponsoring a research effort to develop airborne sensor technology for the detection of low altitude windshear during…

Thunderstorm hazards flight research: Storm hazards 1980 overview

A highly instrumented NASA F-106B aircraft, modified for the storm hazards mission and protected against direct lightning strikes, was used in conjunction with various ground based radar and lightning measurement systems…

Estimation of Reduction in Airspace Capacity Due to Convective Weather

Severe convective weather routinely disrupts normal flow of air traffic in the United States' National Airspace System (NAS). Over the last decade, severe weather has been the most significant cause, accounting for over …

Pilot Convective Weather Decision Making in En Route Airspace

The present research investigates characteristics exhibited in pilot convective weather decision making in en route airspace. In a part-task study, pilots performed weather avoidance under various encounter scenarios.

Pilot Fatigue and Circadian Desynchronosis

Pilot fatigue and circadian desynchronosis, its significance to air transport safety, and research approaches, were examined. There is a need for better data on sleep, activity, and other pertinent factors from pilots fl…

Validating and Verifying Biomathematical Models of Human Fatigue

Airline pilots experience acute and chronic sleep deprivation, sleep inertia, and circadian desynchrony due to the need to schedule flight operations around the clock.

Validation of Fatigue Modeling Predictions in Aviation Operations

Bio-mathematical fatigue models that predict levels of alertness and performance are one potential tool for use within integrated fatigue risk management approaches.

Linking the Pilot Structural Model and Pilot Workload

Behavioral models are developed that closely reproduced pulsive control response of two pilots using markedly different control techniques while conducting a tracking task.

Human Factors of Flight-deck Automation: NASA/Industry Workshop

The scope of automation, the benefits of automation, and automation-induced problems were discussed at a workshop held to determine whether those functions previously performed manually on the flight deck of commercial a…

Some Challenges in the Design of Human-Automation Interaction for Safety-Critical Systems

Increasing amounts of automation are being introduced to safety-critical domains. While the introduction of automation has led to an overall increase in reliability and improved safety, it has also introduced a class of …

Crew Resource Management for Automated Teammates (CRM-A)

Crew Resource Management (CRM) is the application of human factors knowledge and skills to ensure that teams make effective use of all resources.

Stay Alive--Simulation for Situational Safety Awareness

STAY ALIVE is an idea for a safety awareness simulation prototype, powered by gaming technology, that would make safety training enlightening, engaging and fun.

Prediction of Cognitive States During Flight Simulation Using Multimodal Psychophysiological Sensing

The Commercial Aviation Safety Team found the majority of recent international commercial aviation accidents attributable to loss of control inflight involved flight crew loss of airplane state awareness (ASA), and distr…

Simulation System Fidelity Assessment at the Vertical Motion Simulator

Fidelity is a word that is often used but rarely understood when talking about groundbased simulation. Assessing the cueing fidelity of a ground based flight simulator requires a comparison to actual flight data either d…

Guidelines for line-oriented flight training, volume 2

Current approaches to line-oriented flight training used by six American airlines are described. This recurrent training methodology makes use of a full-crew and full-mission simulation to teach and assess resource manag…

Envelope Protection and Recovery Guidance for Upset Conditions

The slides are an overview and summary of past and current research projects in the field of envelope protection, upset prevention and upset recovery, with the aim to avoid loss of control accidents and improve safety in…

Airplane Upset Training Evaluation Report

Airplane upset accidents are a leading factor in hull losses and fatalities. This study compared five types of airplane-upset training.

Collision Avoidance for Airport Traffic Simulation Evaluation

A Collision Avoidance for Airport Traffic (CAAT) concept for the airport Terminal Maneuvering Area (TMA) was evaluated in a simulation study at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Langley Research Ce…

Who or what saved the day? A comparison of traditional and glass cockpits

This study examined incidents reported to NASAs Aviation Safety Reporting System from a different perspective: rather than focusing on the factors contributing to or causing incidents, this study concentrated on who and …

Workload and Performance in Air Traffic Control: Exploring the Influence of Levels of Automation and Variation in Task Demand

In air traffic control, task demand and workload have important implications for the safety and efficiency of air traffic. Task demand is dynamic, however, research on demand transitions and associated controller percept…

Prediction of Traffic Complexity and Controller Workload in Mixed Equipage NextGen Environments

Controller workload is a key factor in limiting en route air traffic capacity. Past efforts to quantify and predict workload have resulted in identifying objective metrics that correlate well with subjective workload rat…

The Relationship Between Workload and Performance in Air Traffic Control: Exploring the Influence of Levels of Automation and Variation in Task Demand

In an air traffic environment, task demand is dynamic. However, previous research has largely considered the association of task demand and controller performance using conditions of stable task demand.

Surveillance Range and Interference Impacts on Self-Separation Performance

Self-separation is a concept of flight operations that aims to provide user benefits and increase airspace capacity by transferring traffic separation responsibility from ground-based controllers to the flight crew.

An Evaluation Methodology for Traffic Awareness Displays

An evaluation methodology for traffic awareness displays for helicopters and other vertical/short takeoff aircraft was developed. Pilots of vertical/short takeoff aircraft wil1 require more traffic information than would…

Measurement of Temporal Awareness in Air Traffic Control

Temporal awareness, or level 3 situation awareness, is critical to successful control of air traffic, yet the construct remains ill-defined and difficult to measure.

Pilot and Controller Workload and Situation Awareness with Three Traffic Management Concept

This paper reports on workload and situation awareness of pilots and controllers participating in a human-in-the-loop simulation using three different distributed air-ground traffic management concepts.

Conflict Resolution Automation and Pilot Situation Awareness

This study compared pilot situation awareness across three traffic management concepts. The Concepts varied in terms of the allocation of traffic avoidance responsibility between the pilot on the flight deck, the air tra…

Effects of Automation Types on Air Traffic Controller Situation Awareness and Performance

The Joint Planning and Development Office has proposed the introduction of automated systems to help air traffic controllers handle the increasing volume of air traffic in the next two decades (JPDO, 2007).