The Effects of Advanced 'Glass Cockpit' Displayed Flight Instrumentation on In-flight Pilot Decision Making

The Cognitive Continuum Theory (CCT) was first proposed 25 years ago to explain the relationship between intuition and analytical decision making processes. In order for aircraft pilots to make these analytical and intuitive decisions, they obtain information from various instruments within the cockpit of the aircraft. Advanced instrumentation is used to provide a broad array of information about the aircraft condition and flight situation to aid the flight crew in making effective decisions. The problem addressed is that advanced instrumentation has not improved the pilot decision making in modern aircraft. Because making a decision is dependent upon the information available, this experimental quantitative study sought to determine how well pilots organize and interpret information obtained from various cockpit instrumentation displays when under time pressure. The population for this study was the students, flight instructors, and aviation faculty at the Middle Georgia State College School of Aviation campus in Eastman, Georgia. The sample was comprised of two groups of 90 individuals (45 in each group) in various stages of pilot licensure from student pilot to airline transport pilot (ATP). The ages ranged from 18 to 55 years old. There was a statistically significant relationship at the p < .05 level in the ability of the participants to organize and interpret information between the advanced glass cockpit instrumentation and the traditional cockpit instrumentation. It is recommended that the industry explore technological solutions toward creating cockpit instrumentation that could match the type of information display to the type of decision making scenario in order to aid pilots in making decisions that will result in better organization of information. Understanding the relationship between the intuitive and analytical decisions that pilots make and the information source they use to make those decisions will aid engineers in the design of instrumentation in the aircraft cockpit, improve pilot decision making, and increase the safety of flight.