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An Investigation of the Harbor Pilot Concept for Single Pilot Operations

2015; Elsevier BV; Volume: 3; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.promfg.2015.07.948

2351-9789

Martin T. Koltz, Zachary Roberts, John Sweet, Henri Battiste, James Cunningham, Vernol Battiste, Kim‐Phuong L. Vu, Thomas Z. Strybel,

Aerospace and Aviation Technology

Commercial aviation is expected to see an average growth of 3.7% per year over the next five years. At the same time, regional airlines are expressing concerns that they are unable to find a sufficient number of pilots who meet the minimum number of required flight hours and certifications. One option for handling the increased demand for, and reduced supply of, pilots is to better distribute the pilots already employed. This could be accomplished by reducing the number of required crewmembers on the flight deck from two to one. However, a significant challenge to the implementation of a single pilot crew is the increase in workload a single pilot would face especially in complex airspace. The harbor pilot is one concept of operations that has been proposed to deal with the potentially serious problem. In this concept, the harbor pilot is a ground operator whose job it is to help arriving single pilot aircraft navigate the complex terminal area airspace. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the feasibility of the harbor pilot concept by measuring the workload and performance of harbor pilots during a series of back-to-back simulated arrival procedures. Preliminary results show that harbor pilots rate their workload generally low and indicate that the maximum consecutive normal approaches that they are able to complete in a row is about four to six, provided they are not emergency situations.