New Pre-Solo Human performance Exam

[Guest bigblockford545]

Popped into the flight school on the weekend to be told there is another new exam to do before the PPL thumb_down

 

In the wake of the incident at YMMB (Moorabbin) there is now to be a Human Performance exam the is supposed to be done before the first solo. I don't know if the exam has to be done by people whom just want to complete the RAA certificate, but it sure has to be done by RAA/PPL students

 

Apparently is an internally set 20 or so question multiple choice. Has anyone doe one of these yet? What does it consist of?

 

Simon

 

 

[Guest pelorus32]

This has nothing to do with the YMMB accident.

 

The new HF exam for RAAus is a pre-requisite for gaining your Pilot Certificate. Some schools may require it prior to solo. It came into effect for all new pilot certs from September 1 this year. All other RAAus certificate holders have two years from that date to complete the exam if they wish to maintain their certificate.

 

The "text" is the GPPP text from the Australian Flight Safety Foundation. It is available from the RAAus office for $16 plus $10 postage. There is apparently a new text under development by some other mob as well.

 

From 2009 all GFPT, PPL and CPL tests will include assessment of HF as well - there is a new CAAP out on that which can be found on the CASA site.

 

The 20 questions are not bad, they look at some physiological stuff, classification of things in terms of Threat and Error and then offer a scenario and ask you to answer questions on it. All Qns are multi-choice.

 

Regards

 

Mike

 

 

[Guest airsick]

When I did my PPL human factors was a part of it - hypoxia, stress, blood pressure and so on. Is this now going to be a discrete test? Which CAAP are you referring to?

 

 

[Guest pelorus32]

When I did my PPL human factors was a part of it - hypoxia, stress, blood pressure and so on. Is this now going to be a discrete test? Which CAAP are you referring to?

Draft CAAP 5.59-1(0) - Teaching and Assessing Single Pilot Human Factors and Threat and Error Management.

 

http://casa.gov.au/newrules/documents/draft_caap5_59.pdf

 

But for RAAus it now is a discrete 20 question test which all certificate holders must pass within 2 years of 1 September 2008 and which all new certificate candidates post 1 September 2008 must pass in order to be issued with a certificate.

 

Regards

 

Mike

 

 

[Bigglesworth]

Good timing, I have to do my BFR very soon (hopefully the w/e) and it includes this test, so I'm brushing up on all I know. I passed the PPL test, so I should know enough, or is this different structure?

 

I noticed in the new manual the syllabus includes reference to a few names of models/theories which are new to me, but the rest is pretty standard.... I'll just read my stack of flight safety mags.

 

And to top it off, a little bird told me that the instructor has reason to believe that I am too crazy to have a pilots license (or something like that) so they'll be hitting me with a fine tooth comb.......

 

Goes back to studying hard, hard, harder.....

 

 

 

[Guest RLP]

fine tooth comb just for you? Sounds discriminatory. ..... but of course I guess you could be truly crazy.

 

 

[pylon500]

I still think the whole Human Factors thing is a crock.

 

If your instructor cant instill some form of 'Common Sense' (which is all Human Factors is about), then he's not doing his job.

 

In the past, this has always been known as AIRMANSHIP

 

We should all know, or have learnt;

 

-Not to fly in bad weather,

 

-Not to get distracted by your passengers,

 

-Not to fly when stressed,

 

-Not to fly when unwell,

 

-Never become complacent with preflight checks, preflight planning, in flight lookout and always having an 'out' if something goes wrong.

 

Some of this stuff borders on being Experience which can be a hard thing to teach, but a good instructor should be able to pose some of these problems to students in the course of day to day instructing without making it look like another one of those things that 'only us god like pilots' are capable of.

 

In the past I have taught students that were barely literate and although they could learn the 'hands on' skills to fly a plane, were afraid of having to read a whole lot of theory to get their certificate.

 

If however, the theoretical side to flying, map reading and rules of the air was explained to them physically or on a white board, they would totally grasp the concept.

 

As another example, you only have to look at the incidence of young driver accidents to see that the whole teaching system for young drivers is somewhat flawed.

 

Many of these young drivers know all the road rules and relevant legislation, but don't know how to drive properly!

 

I'm not saying that 'Human Factors' is not a valid part of the learning to fly experience, but I don't think it needs to be a whole separate course that must be passed even once, let alone every two years, just to fly a plane recreationally.

 

This is the field of the commercially rated pilot, right up there with 'Cockpit Resource Management'

 

Heaven forbid some idiot tries to introduce THAT into two seat ultralight flying!

 

Arthur.

 

 

[Guest basscheffers]

As another example, you only have to look at the incidence of young driver accidents to see that the whole teaching system for young drivers is somewhat flawed.Many of these young drivers know all the road rules and relevant legislation, but don't know how to drive properly!

Off-topic, but: oh man, that scares the bejezus out of me. The only way to learn how to drive in most (all?) of Europe is with a driving school and someone trained as an instructor and in a vehicle that has brake (and clutch - barely anyone learns in an automatic) for the instructor too. All from the age of 18. 25 hours of dual instruction is the average and no solos before you have your license.

Move to South Australia and any irresponsible 16 year old can be taught to drive by anyone who doesn't have P-plates or recent DUI convictions with only verbal commands to avert disaster!

 

And the media has a problem with us taking to the skies after only 20 hours of training. (should we tell them most of us actually go solo with only about 10 hours?)

 

 

[Guest Crezzi]

Good points Arthur & I mostly concur.

 

I was on a recent GPPP course & have to say I was pleasantly surprised that it was much more practical than I expected with only the occasional diversion into the realms of the health & safety stasi. From talking to people who had been on earlier courses they suffered much more psychobabble. This improvement may well have been due to the presenter not being the money-grabbing *** who dreamed all of this up.

 

My understanding was that for new students it would be entirely possibly for the contents to be worked into the normal teaching regime albeit there is an additional exam they have to sit at at some point. Obviously there isn't the opportunity to do this with existing pilot certificate holders so they may require some kind of course (self study is an option though) &, AFAIK, it only has to be done once (within the next 2 years) not every 2 years.

 

Cheers

 

John

 

 

[Bigglesworth]

fine tooth comb just for you? Sounds discriminatory. ..... but of course I guess you could be truly crazy.

Many a true word spoken in jest they say........

 

nah, I don't blame them, I just happened to rub the Raa the wrong way a while back, and now my instructor knows he has to cover his back and his work must be 100% above critisism.

 

As for Human factors, it does get a bit above common sense, I learnt a bit about it in my PPL theory.

 

Take the causes of disorientation for instance.

 

Common sense say we can balance; but we all know that in cloud, VFR pilots get hurt. And it is only when we know the theory that we know where the limits are and why.

 

I am all for knowing as much theory as possible, knowing your limits exactly, and then flying at the edge. Safely.

 

Not to mention the part which goes like:

 

"come on, Fred, take us for a fly, you're not that tired, it was only a small party"

 

and then Fred has to able to say

 

"It seems like it, but we were taught in flying school that the rarified air up there can exacerbate the situation, not no mention sitting still in a plane, can cause someone who is a little worn out to make big mistakes"

 

So go for it, just make the theory available online, it makes it easier....

 

 

[Yenn]

I havn't seen the course and maybe it will be very good, but having worked in the construction industry for many years and also the State Emergency Service, I don't expect much common sense, but a load of blather. My experience is that a lot of time is spent analysing and dissecting what could go wrong, but there is no way of ensuring that everything is covered. This is to some extent covered by the wording such as "Including, but not limited to" which says to me that the thought process has not been carried through.

 

 

[pylon500]

I was pleasantly surprised that it was much more practical than I expected

G'Day Crezzi, Not to pick on you, but I think you'll find that you were pleasantly surprised by what you were hearing because it struck a chord in your subconscious that you understood what was being said.

If we sit in on any form of teaching environment wanting to learn stuff, and hear stuff we can quickly relate to, we think 'Hey, this is easy to learn, this should be a good course'

 

The truth is, what you just learnt was common sense, and you probably knew it 'in the back of your mind' anyway!

 

It was a CON !

 

An instructor in flight with a student can make a quick comment like, "If you see an aircraft in the distance that is NOT changing it's position on your windscreen, then you are on a collision course with that plane!"

 

This comment takes about five seconds, and if arranged to be told as closing on another plane (at a distance), the student gets the idea instantly and tends to remember it permanently!

 

Most common sense is relatively easy to teach.

 

I think what I'm getting at is that, sure this is all good stuff to hear, it gives us reason to actually stop and have a quick think about any of our planned actions, and like reading 'Crash Comics', it gives us pause to stop and think "there for the grace of god, etc, etc", but do we really need to be examined on this common sense?

 

My only hope is that I'm all out of place here, and that the new syllabus has been scaled back to a more practical beast, but looking at the requirements on the OP's manual disc, I have my fears.

 

If anyone has NOT looked at the CASA proposed draft (I know, it's 52 pages, but after the first 5 to 10, you'll get the idea) please take a look, then tell me it's NOT psychobabble.

 

My experience is that a lot of time is spent analysing and dissecting what could go wrong, but there is no way of ensuring that everything is covered.

This is along the same lines as a comment I made in another thread;

 

When the guy running the course suggested that you could review one of the eight handouts every two years (charging for it naturally), I asked him, "What if there is a situation covered by one of the books, but someone crashes because they hadn't got to that book yet?"He did a lot of quick talking and side tracking and never directly answered the question, but the impression was 'it's not a problem as the books are basically the same'.

I suspect the answer to obviating this whole process is to place a large sticker on all our instrument panels that just says;

 

THINK!

 

Arthur.

 

 

[K-man]

Having read the 52 pages of the Draft HF & TEM document, I think it's a bit like the ASIC card fiasco. I find it disturbing that the document suggests to an instructor that they should deiberately apply pressure to a student pilot, in flight, to the level that they cannot cope, to demonstrate what happens when we are subjected to high levels of stress. I would also suggest that to change the radio frequency when the student is distracted to see if the student notices that something is wrong is just plain crazy. They didn't suggest that the instructor retracts the undercarriage on base to see if the student makes the final check on final but that is probably because very few training aircraft have RU.

 

Then section 11 suggests that pre-flight we should basically do a SWOT analysis, repeat during flight and after the flight do another one just to see what could have gone wrong!

 

I hope some one can come up with a decent checklist. Perhaps the following could provide inspiration:

 

C .. Check for every worst case scenario.

 

R .. Realise that we all can make errors of judgement.

 

A .. Agree to maintain good situational awareness.

 

P .. Post any potential problems NOT encountered to this forum.

 

Some posts suggest that this is about 'common sense' but to my mind this is about the opposite. As the saying goes, 'the problem with common sense is that it is not common'.

 

I can understand an instructor taking on board the sentiments of this document and modifying the instruction. There can never be too much attention devoted to SA (situational awareness), but to try and cover this in a session on the ground, then pass a 20 question quiz? This really seems like someone with too much time on their hands!!

 

thumb_down

 

 

[Guest Crezzi]

G'Day Crezzi, Not to pick on you, but I think you'll find that you were pleasantly surprised by what you were hearing because it struck a chord in your subconscious that you understood what was being said.

No problem Arthur, I always enjoy your contributions !

 

I agree with your sentiments but I think the explanation is even simpler - I expected the course to be the same content as the one people I spoke to had attended previously (possibly the same as the one you were on). This wasn't the case and the differences were at least a move in the right direction which was both a surprise and a relief as I feared I would have spent the whole 2 days grumping at the presenter.

 

You are quite correct that it is mostly common sense and that the majority of it can easily be integrated into the normal tuition. I would like to think that this is already the case - I know it is at the school I'm associated with. If so, that doesn't have to change just because its now formally on the syllabus.

 

There is some content on personal health which possibly doesn't get covered much during flight training and more emphasis on thinking about accident reports. Its a shame that these had to be mostly GA presumably because the ultralight accident reporting is so lamentable. And there is still a chronic abundance of acronyms - "SPRAIN" has got to be a contender for the most contrived acronym I've ever heard (& thats from somebody who works in the computer industry).

 

I did a short (10 Q?) HF exam as part of my UK microlight licence donkeys years ago so maybe I'm a bit more ambivalent about the need to test students knowledge on this all.

 

Cheers

 

John

 

PS I find it strange (as would my collegues) that I appear on the forums to be defending the intrusion of unnecessary concepts from the H&S "industry" - I guess where I'm coming from is that this is happening whether we like it or not but that it could have been even less relevant .

 

 

[pylon500]

This wasn't the case and the differences were at least a move in the right direction

G'Day Crezzi, I think I may have been on the very first PPP course run in Canberra (Oct 2005), I had the feeling we all thought "Yes, that was nice, but a bit overblown" and that would be the last of it.

Some of my fellow clubmembers are about to do an update course, so I will compare the changes, if any.

 

I always find it a worry when something gets implemented and the heading of [sAFETY gets stuck on it.

 

Once this happens, it is almost impossible to counteract it.

 

Arthur.

 

 

[Chucky]

There is a story about the Human Factors Course in October issue of RAA magazine(page 45) stating we can do the test online. So where do we go?

 

 

 

[facthunter]

Relevence.

 

I think I was on the 2nd course, when it was pretty much in its "Pure", original form. I was very vocal as to the need to make the course relevant to our membership. I have no doubt that I made a nuisance of myself, but this was an untended consequence of me forcefully expressing the opinion that WE need to have the course "Tailored to our particular needs and not just transplanted from elsewhere to our situation." (simplify and make relevent to our particular OPS) I have considerable previous experience of these types of courses, and their relevance and method of implication is critical if they are going to have the benefits that justify the costs and trouble, as well as being accepted by OUR members.

 

We can talk about commonsense, but it is not common, and some actions that result in catastrophe are not even sense.

 

Hardly anyone who has studied aircraft mishaps could fail to be appalled at the "wacky"(my word) decision-making processes that frequently cause such deadly outcomes, (usually called pilot error, by the unenlightened) and it would be hard to argue that a proper and EFFECTIVE treatment of this aspect of our training would not produce measurable benefits in SAFETY, for a minimum cost. Like all things, it is a matter of getting it right. Nev

 

 

[farri]

Human Factors??????????

 

One of the Questions I ask on the human factors exam, requirement,is this.

 

Why does anyone, like myself, who has been flying sucessfully for a 1/4 of a centuary, and instructed for more than a decade,need to do a "Human Factors" exam,and if this exam is so important,why the 2 years time limit?.

 

MORE NONSENSE.

 

Cheers,

 

Frank.

 

 

[Guest bigblockford545]

Well I sat the test today. 25 multiple choice questions, all over with in about 20 minutes or so. Passed, I used the Bob Tait human factors book as a reference. Not too bad but I wouldn't go in there expecting it all to be just common-sense with reading up first.

 

have fun

 

Simon

 

 

[Yenn]

Maybe the course will be a good thing, maybe it will reduce the accident rate, but what gets me is the fact that we need to front up with our money to find out about it. I would like to see a sample of the questions they are asking. The cost is not all that much, but I perceive it as a money grab by the perpetrators. This sort of thing was tried in bushwalking circles, when it was proposed that leaders of bushwalks should have qualifications. We actually managed to get that stopped as there were so many leaders who would have had more idea of what they were doing than the people who wanted to be paid to train them.

 

I will have a look at the RAAus site and see if it is possible to see the questions or to take the test on line for free. If I cannot do the test on line, I wonder where I will have to go as our nearest city which I believe has a population of over 50,000 doesn't have a flying school, nor does it have a DAME for medicals.

 

 

[Guest Rocko]

HP assessment is just one more little hurdle ;)

 

It might even help drop accidents some.

 

Just like speed camera, RBT's and all the media campaigns help reduce the road toll.

 

And ASIC cards made all airstrips safer ;>

 

Then again, so will safer aircraft, better airstrips, and BRS's.

 

But nothing will combat stupidity. Or bad luck.

 

Aviation is no different than drivers on the road. There's always an element of stupidity. And risk.

 

It's just a shame when some nit Darwinates himself, through sheer stupidity, he makes everyone else look bad.

 

Will HP testing help improve that?

 

Really?

 

Seriously??? ;)

 

Anythings worth a try. We'll just have to see if the crash stats show it.

 

Personally, I don't mind too much. At least someone is trying something.

 

Scotty

 

 

[Guest brentc]

I've seen the exam. It's not overly difficult and 90% of people would pass it with little or no study whatsoever. The intention is to make you think a bit more about what you're doing and how to identify key indicators for situations and conditions that may affect your ability to fly.

 

For those that have been flying for many years and believe that you don't need this because you've been flying for ages and it's a waste of time - think again, because you are one of the primary targets for this test!

 

How many of us really do understand the effects and recognition of Hypoxia, Carbon Monoxide poisoning, diet, blood sugars, heart disease?

 

If the outcome is for us to stop and think for even a short time about the topics included, then it has achieved a positive result.

 

 

[Ewen McPhee]

If over 70% of accidents relate to Human factors, then perhaps some education would be good idea. Have just done my Exam and passed, wasn't that bad, with mainly practical questions; although I can't see the point of classifying stress as I am Panicking on final thumb_down.

 

I spoke to a group for an hour on hypoxia, fatigue, spatial disorientation, medications and other things. No one complained and most learned something new. Aviation and Flying is about lifelong learning like anything else worth doing. Just simple things like flying with a cold, flying when tired need to be pointed out to some people. Maybe flying with fractured ribs is a bit obvious but I saw a gent the other day doing exactly that until the pain was too much.

 

 

[Bernie]

Human Factors

 

How would this rate in a human factor test, yesterday I was going on a flight with a fellow club member as the pilot, there were two other aircraft on said flight we were the last to leave. At the reqired level when the take off flaps were retracted they failed to do so, two up full fuel is was straining to get to hight and speed at 1,000ft pilot reduced speed to try and retract flaps,after several attempts we returned to the airfield and landed. At which point I elected to abandon my seat and remain on the ground, the pilot then left without me and done a flapless take off.(they worked on the ground)

 

Did I make the right decision?

 

Bernie.

 

 

[Admin]

Yes Bernie, you did make the right decision as the aircraft is now flying with a defect.

 

We all know that accidents are caused by a group of events or situations and whilst flying without the ability to use the flaps isn't in itself a great problem but add it together with an engine failure mixed with a small landing area, coming in to fast and to high and no flaps to bring that aircraft down safely is a problem. The pilot ends up deceased simply because the flaps were not working - think about it.

 

You may say well what about a Gazelle that doesn't have flaps in that situation. Then the cause of the pilot losing their life was the engine failure whereas the cause of the first scenario was pilot error for flying an un-airworthy aircraft and thus becomes the subject of a caning in aircraft accident forums