When a team of military and civilian researchers conquered the sound barrier with the rocket-powered Bell X-1 piloted by Capt. Charles E. Chuck Yeager in October 1947, flight performance was considered to be primarily a func-tion of the airframe/powerplant configuration, flight controls, and pilot skill. Design focus in the 1940s and 1950s, sometimes called the golden age of flight test, concentrated on vehicle configuration; aerodynamic control problems; and performance during low-speed, transonic, and supersonic flight. Human-machine interaction was not considered a key issue, except for the narrow dimension of flying handling qualities. Within the flight-test community, a good pilot needed not only flying skills, but also engineering knowledge. An optimal pilot embodied a combination of the requisite skills, training, courage, and experience (i.e., the right stuff, as described by author Tom Wolfe in his brilliant book of the same name). Such pilots flew dozens of experimental craft, known collectively as X-planes, to evaluate a wide variety of cutting-edge configurations and capabilities. They flew in regimes of flight where new rules had to be written for aerodynamics, propulsion, navigation, and thermal effects. Aviators were frequently exposed to extreme and unpredictable flight conditions that provided both physiologi-cal and cognitive challenges. In the early years of aviation, mishaps were often unfairly attributed to pilot error, a catchall term too often used to describe a variety of issues related to human factors.
Breaking the Mishap Chain: Human Factors Lessons Learned from Aerospace Accidents and Incidents in Research, Flight Test, and Development
1964
244 pages
Report
No indication
English
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