[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
so we'll move on to our second module
decision making.
And just like pre-flight planning
decision making can
impact on us having a successful flight
so what are some of the traps to
decision making
first of all bias there's many different
types of bias
and one that comes to mind is the halo
effect for example
now the halo effect is one that can be
described only as putting maybe someone
up on a pedestal
because of maybe their experience or who
they are as an individual.
I like to use the example of Chuck
Yeager for example
so if i went and asked Chuck Yeager
a flying question about something about
maybe a modern
aircraft and flying that aircraft now,
I might take his example
or his advice really highly because of
his experience and what I know about him
as a pilot
but then again i might ask that same
question of a brand new
grade two flying instructor now that
flying instructor may not have that same
experience as Chuck Yeager
but they're a lot more current and maybe
I need to be listening to them
rather than that person that I've put up
on a pedestal under that halo bias.
The second one is time pressures so we
talked about time pressures
playing into our planning and maybe
preventing us from planning.
It also plays into our decision making
and it can work both ways
as you know when we're under pressure
and
time is of the essence maybe we don't
make effective decisions because we
don't have enough time to
think about what we need when we're put
under time pressure.
Maybe we don't have the time to really
think through all of the areas that we
need to consider.
But on the other hand time can also play
in in the fact that we have
too much time when we have too much time
to consider something.
Maybe we're taking in too many different
options
that we then get mixed up in in all of
those
extra things that we're thinking about,
rather than maybe selecting a few
particular items.
Fatigue. As we all know we don't think as
well when we're tired.
Solving the wrong problem we've seen
plenty of examples over the years of
solving the wrong problem
in Miami, for example, in the everglades,
there was an aircraft during the 1970s
of an aircraft that had a light bulb
for indicating its undercarriage and
that
light bulb wasn't illuminating when the
aircraft
came into land. As a result the flight
crew ended up holding for quite a
significant time...
..but inadvertently actually knocked
the autopilot off and ended up crashing
prior to actually arrival.
And it wasn't that the undercarriage
wasn't down it was the fact
that the light bulb was actually blown.
And therefore you can see
us solving potentially the wrong problem.
Failure to consult.
Who do we actually have available to us
to discuss
some of the problems that are going on
in our cockpit.
Now it's not so bad when we have multi
crews or maybe we're actually out flying
with our pilot friend.
Sometimes maybe our passengers may
actually think of something that we
haven't considered as part of our
problem solving, but what about when
we're actually flying on our own,
are there resources or people that we
can consult
when we're out in those particular areas.
So I think of other parties such as
air traffic control or other pilots on
the area frequency that maybe
if i'm in some sort of problem i might
be able to utilise them as a resource to
consult.
And the last one is complacency and I
think we covered off complacency as part
of our
failure to plan earlier. It's that uh
I can't be bothered kind of thing so
we're going to look at
tools just like we did in flight
planning that we can use as part of our
decision making.
And the tool that we're going to use is
called pilot
and as part of using this tool we're
actually going to use
a case study or a scenario that we've
already looked at.
And the case study that we're going to
use is the aircraft flying from
portapunker in victoria
through to parafield in south australia
so let's walk through the pilot model
and understand what it actually means so
p
standing for pooling the facts i
is identifying the problem l is looking
for solutions
o is to operate t is to take stock
and when you think about this we almost
do this intuitively
you think about the aviate navigate
communicate you can almost apply this to
the pilot model
and for those of you that are familiar
with decision making models
you may be familiar with terms such as a
grade
or decide which use similar principles
to the pilot model
so let's break the pilot model down a
little bit further
pull the facts what is our current
situation
what is actually going on around us that
we know of
identifying the problem what is actually
the problems that in front of me and it
doesn't necessarily just have to be one
what are the multiple problems that
exist and how do i prioritize them
l is look for solutions given the
current information
what can i devise as a plan and take
action on
oh operate now i'm actually applying the
plan i'm putting it into action
and the last one and maybe i will take
back the word
last one is take stock has your plan
changed since the situation started
now the reason why i say i don't like to
make it the last one
is as you will see by the diagram in
front of you
is that this planning model is actually
very cyclic
once you start and you put an action in
play it may actually change the
situation in front of you
and therefore you need to repool the
facts and work back through the problem
again
we're going to apply the pilot module to
the case study that we saw in the
planning module
where the aircraft flew from portapunka
in victoria
to parafield in south australia and we
had a fuel issue along the way
so now we can pool the facts the
aircraft departed behind schedule up to
90 minutes
the aircraft potentially arriving after
last light
limited their landing areas and ability
to be able to get fuel
diversions and descent due to cloud and
weather
created more flight time and potential
more use of fuel
lower altitude the headwind that the
aircraft encountered in the initial
phase of flight and which had been
planned for
was only 10 knots but the aircraft had
actually encountered
20 to 25 knot headwind toward the end of
the flight
and the last available fuel for the
aircraft was at nil
and the decision to overfly based on
that information at the time
so if we move on to the eye we need to
identify
what the problems were as part of those
facts and these can be multiple problems
and we'll prioritize them
the late departure meant that last light
occurred before the aircraft could get
to murray bridge
no lights at that particular airfield
meant that they were unable to refuel
there
the higher fuel burn due to the lower
level and weather avoidance since nil
that they took some time to actually get
identified by atc
and they were asked to remain octa for a
significant period of time
they had insufficient fuel to be able to
conduct their flight to parafield and
that's probably the main problem
that we can identify here and that's why
we've put the asterisk at the end
so let's move to our l in the pilot
model looking for solutions
now there are many solutions that can be
used here however we've just chosen a
select few
they're not necessarily the best
solutions but they're used as an example
so one is to advise atc of
their fuel situation and while they made
a pen call
under the current rules that would be
making a mayday call
the earlier the call is made means that
atc can provide assistance earlier
and maybe some track shortening or some
priority
ask for assistance in locating alternate
landing areas
configuring the aircraft for maximum
range
and considering a change of course due
to lower terrain
so if we move on from looking for
solutions now we want to pick one of
those solutions
and we want to operate putting one of
those into play
so in this particular circumstance we've
chosen to fly the aircraft
and configure it for maximum range
continue high to
adelaide to give us best glide ability
and lastly
but as i said it's not necessarily last
if we're looking at our cyclic model
is to take stock how has our situation
changed
keep the normal in the abnormal
situation
now some of you might ask what that
actually means
so for most of us we have regular checks
that we can duck throughout our flight
but sometimes when we've encountered
some abnormal situations
some of those things aren't necessarily
at the forefront of our brain
when we come into land maybe we might
run through a bump
checklist or maybe if we're flying a
retractable aircraft
that our undercarriage is in fact down
when we're configuring our aircraft on
final
that is keeping the normal in the
abnormal by continuing to conduct those
checks
or it may be this circumstance where the
aircraft was landing after dark
is ensuring that we've activated the pal
and then as i said
earlier has my situation improved by
taking the actions that i have
or has it actually changed my situation
and do i need to consider further
actions
most of the items that we've covered in
the pilot model are fairly intuitive
and you probably conduct these things
without even knowing it
all we've done there is take the
opportunity to break it down
and make you think about each of those
particular steps for next time that you
go flying
you