Flightcrew could routinely answer questions about possible problems during day-to-day operations using electronic flight bag-like software, if a European Union Sixth Framework Programme succeeds.
Airlines use observers to monitor flights, but crew behaviour can change when they feel they are being watched. The airlines believe that the routine logging of answers about basic flight operations is one way of collating better data on problems. It could also lead to a standard European model for performance monitoring.
“Airlines don’t catch the little things that might have lined up and resulted in something catastrophic. We’re trying to make [operations] feedback more routine and not burdensome,” says Dublin, Ireland-based Aircraft Management Technologies’ (AMT) chief operating officer Stephen Hardgrave.
Electronic flight bag provider AMT will talk to airline staff about the flight-operation processes to develop the data-capturing software. The four-year, €6 million ($7.3 million) Human Integration into the Lifecycle of Aviation Systems (HILAS) project began on 23 August with a meeting at HILAS partner Rockwell Collins UK.
Source: Flight International
