Flight Experience, Risk Taking, and Hazardous Attitudes in Glider Instructors (Experience de vol, Prise de Risque et Attitudes Dangereuses des Instructeurs de vol sur Planeur)

Abstract

Crew members' hazardous attitudes (including invulnerability to stressors) have been identified as possible contributing factors to many aviation accidents, and a great deal of research in this area thus far has been directed toward developing effective training programs to modify them to reflect realistic and positive attitudes towards flight safety. Yet little research has explored the role of flight experience and risk−taking attitudes in explaining hazardous attitudes, especially outside the context of general aviation. The current work extends existing research by examining the hazardous attitudes of glider instructors. It also investigates the role played by flight experience and risk−taking attitudes in predicting the instructors? hazardous attitudes, considering both the linear and curvilinear relationships between flight experience and hazardous attitudes. These cross−sectional data, originating from 144 current and past glider instructors from five Regional Gliding Centres across Canada, provided partial support for the hypotheses. Of note were the significant quadratic components of the overall main effect of flight experience on hazardous attitudes. As well, greater risk−taking attitudes were significantly related to greater negative attitudes toward human factors, as was a basic knowledge of human factors. I summarize the findings and present limitations of the study as well as suggestions for future research.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Nov 01, 2010
Accession Number
ADA543491

Entities

People

  • Ann-renee Blais

Organizations

  • Defence Research and Development Canada

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accidents
  • Aircrafts
  • Aviation Accidents
  • Behavioral Sciences
  • Classification
  • Factor Analysis
  • Human Behavior
  • Information Science
  • Instructors
  • Pilots
  • Psychology
  • Regression Analysis
  • Risk
  • Security
  • Statistics
  • Surveys
  • Training

Readers

  • Aviation Safety Risk Assessment.
  • Organizational Psychology.
  • Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR) EDI Research and Innovation.

Technology Areas

  • Autonomy
  • Autonomy - Human-Robot Interaction