Human Factors for pilots
The pilot as part of the system: physiology and health, perception and illusions, memory and workload, fatigue, decision-making, crew resource management and threat and error management, from EASA ATPL subject 040.
PPL · CPL · ATPL
Acceleration and G-Forces
Explains the effects of sustained and impact acceleration on the body, from gray-out and G-LOC to red-out, and the ways to raise G-tolerance.
PPL · CPL · ATPL
Aeronautical Decision-Making and Risk Management
Covers how pilots make decisions, the structured decision models used in training and airlines, and the tools for assessing and reducing flight risk, including personal minimums.
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Alcohol, Drugs and Medication
Covers how alcohol and medication affect pilot performance, legal alcohol limits and reporting rules, substance-misuse and peer-support programs, and common drug classes.
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Attention, Vigilance and Distraction
Explains attention as a limited resource, how fixation, lockup and low vigilance develop, and how pilots manage interruptions and distractions.
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Barotrauma and Decompression Sickness
Explains how pressure changes affect trapped gases in the body, causing ear, sinus, dental and gut barotrauma, and covers cabin decompression, time of useful consciousness and decompression sickness.
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Carbon Monoxide and Cabin Air Hazards
Covers carbon monoxide poisoning and its detection, fume events, ozone and low humidity in the cabin, and exposure to cosmic radiation.
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Circulatory System and Cardiovascular Health
Describes the heart, blood vessels and blood, how oxygen is transported, and the cardiovascular diseases and risk factors that matter for pilot fitness.
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Cognitive Biases in Decision-Making
Explains the cognitive biases that distort pilot judgment, with emphasis on plan continuation bias, get-there-itis, VFR into IMC and other operational pitfalls.
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Crew Resource Management (CRM)
Covers the aims and skills of CRM, crew coordination and cross-monitoring, group decision-making pitfalls, debriefing, and single-pilot resource management.
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Fatigue
Defines pilot fatigue and its causes and effects, and covers controlled rest, fatigue reporting and fatigue risk management systems.
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Fitness to Fly and Pilot Incapacitation
Covers self-assessment of fitness to fly, everyday health threats such as dehydration, low blood sugar and travel illness, and how crews recognize and handle incapacitation.
CPL · IR · ATPL
Flight Deck Automation
The human factors of automated flight decks: choosing and managing levels of automation, complacency and dependency, mode confusion and automation surprise, and keeping manual flying skills.
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Flight Deck Communication
Explains communication models, verbal and non-verbal channels, barriers to understanding, and the listening, questioning and closed-loop techniques used by crews.
CPL · ATPL
Flight Deck Design and Ergonomics
How flight deck controls, displays and checklists are designed around human capabilities, from anthropometry and the design eye position to shape coding and standardization, and how poor design induces error.
CPL · ATPL
Flight Deck Leadership and Authority Gradient
Leadership styles on the flight deck, the Blake and Mouton grid, the authority gradient and cultural power distance, and the assertiveness techniques crews use to speak up.
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Hazardous Attitudes
Describes the five hazardous attitudes and their antidotes, and how overconfidence and complacency erode safety as experience grows.
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Hearing and Noise
Explains how the ear detects sound, how noise is measured, and how pilots can prevent noise-induced and age-related hearing loss.
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Human Error and Accident Causation
How human errors and violations are classified, how Rasmussen's skill, rule and knowledge levels explain them, and how Reason's Swiss cheese model links active failures and latent conditions to accidents.
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Human Factors Accident Case Studies
Summarizes the landmark accidents that shaped human factors and CRM training, and the lessons each one taught.
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Human Factors and the SHELL Model
Introduces aviation human factors and human performance and limitations, and explains the SHELL model and its interfaces.
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Human Information Processing
Explains the information processing model, from the nervous system and sensory memory through perception and decision to action and reaction time.
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Hypoxia and Hyperventilation
Covers respiration and gas exchange, the types, stages and prevention of hypoxia, and how to recognize and correct hyperventilation.
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Memory and Learning
Covers short-term, working and long-term memory, their limits and failures, and how pilots learn and retain skills.
CPL · ATPL
Personality and Motivation
Personality traits and the models used to describe them, the mental health conditions that matter for fitness to fly, and the theories of motivation, rewards and job design.
PPL · CPL · ATPL
Pilot Health: Diet, Exercise and Lifestyle
The lifestyle factors that keep a pilot fit to fly, from diet, blood sugar and hydration to exercise, weight, smoking, caffeine and long-term cardiovascular risk.
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Pilot Mental Health and Peer Support
Mental health and flying: common conditions, medication, how medical rules treat them, peer support programs and how pilots can seek help.
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Safety Culture and Occurrence Reporting
Explains safety culture and just culture, the drift toward normalized deviance, and the mandatory and confidential reporting schemes that feed safety learning.
CPL · ATPL
Safety Management Systems
Covers the structure of an SMS, hazard identification and risk assessment, and the safety assurance programs such as FDM/FOQA and LOSA.
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Situational Awareness
Explains situational awareness using Endsley's three-level model, the role of individual and shared mental models, and how monitoring failures lead to its loss.
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Sleep and Circadian Rhythms
Covers sleep stages and how sleep is measured, the body clock and its disruption by jet lag and shift work, and common sleep disorders.
PPL · CPL · IR · ATPL
Spatial Disorientation and the Vestibular System
Explains how the vestibular and somatosensory systems sense orientation, the vestibular illusions they produce in flight, and motion sickness.
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Startle and Surprise
What startle and surprise do to a pilot's perception and performance, why they matter in upsets and unexpected failures, and how training and simple techniques help crews recover their capacity to act.
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Stress
Explains stress and stressors, the body's stress response and arousal, the startle effect, and coping and stress-management strategies.
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The Eye and Vision
Describes the structure of the eye, how central, peripheral and depth vision work, and how vision changes from day to night.
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Threat and Error Management (TEM)
Explains the TEM framework of threats, errors and undesired aircraft states, and the countermeasures crews use to manage them.
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Vision Defects and Eye Protection
Covers common vision defects and eye diseases, the medical standards for correcting them, and the choice of sunglasses and lenses for flying.
PPL · CPL · IR · ATPL
Visual Illusions
Describes the visual illusions that mislead pilots, especially on approach and at night, and the techniques that counter them.
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Visual Scanning and Collision Avoidance
Explains the limits of see-and-avoid, effective lookout scanning techniques, and how to recognize a traffic conflict on a constant bearing.
PPL · CPL · ATPL
Workload Management
Covers what workload is, the dangers of overload and task saturation, and how pilots plan, prioritize and shed tasks to stay ahead of the aircraft.
Test yourself on Human Factors
The v1prep banks cover this topic in Human Performance and Limitations (040), with a worked explanation for every answer.
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