The Influence of Visibility, Cloud Ceiling, Financial Incentive, and Personality Factors on General Aviation Pilots' Willingness to Take Off Into Marginal Weather, Part 1: The Data and Preliminary Conclusions

Abstract

Adverse weather is the leading cause of fatalities in general aviation (GA). In this research, influences of ground visibility, cloud ceiling height, financial incentive, and personality were tested on 60 GA pilots' willingness to take off into simulated adverse weather. Results suggested that pilots do not see "weather" as a monolithic cognitive construct but, rather, as an interaction between its separate factors. This was supported by the finding that the multiplicative statistical effect of visibility and ceiling could better predict takeoff than could the linear effect of either variable considered separately. Also found was a statistical trend toward financial incentive being able to predict takeoffs. However, none of the 10 personality tests (incorporating over 500 separate response items) could predict takeoff.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 01, 2005
Accession Number
ADA460734

Entities

People

  • Howard Harris
  • Scott Shappell
  • William Knecht

Organizations

  • Federal Aviation Administration

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Human Systems
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accidents
  • Aircrafts
  • Algorithms
  • Aviation Accidents
  • Cognition
  • Demography
  • Flight Simulators
  • Flight Training
  • Human Behavior
  • Information Science
  • Psychology
  • Regression Analysis
  • Risk
  • Simulators
  • Statistical Analysis
  • Statistics
  • Visual Flight Rules

Readers

  • Aerospace Engineering
  • Atmospheric Remote Sensing.
  • Economics