In 1995, while a Manager of Corporate Human Factors and Delta, I wrote a
paper for the Flight Safety Foundation Conference. The paper is titled:
Creating automation excellence: The philosophies and methods of Delta Air
Lines. In response to recent request for my papers, I have created a very
rudimentary web page where some of them can be downloaded. (I have a lot to
learn from Web Wizards like Neil!!!) They are written in Adobe Acrobat and
are located at:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/vince_mancuso/biblio.htm
In addition to the excellent posting that Lonny provided on Delta's
Automation Policy, Delta recently formalized a policy where both crew
members confirm that the correct altitude is set in the altitude window.
Other airlines such as US Airways have had formalized policies for
coordinating altitude changes for some time. US Airways has required crew
members to point at the change until the other crew member acknowledges the
correct altitude is set.
I hope that this helps all the folks who are developing or reengineering
automation related policies for their airlines.
Best Regards,
Vince Mancuso, Ph.D.
Delta Air Lines