incidently, florian, where does your university publish any of your papers
online. i've been looking for a paper by bowers, et al (1995, i beleive)
for quite some time now (i only have access to ijap from 1996 and later).
Marc Dubrule
Doug Edwards wrote:
> Marc
>
> You have some pretty good replies and I'd like to build on a few of
> them, but at the really basic level. Hang in there, I'll get to a point
> after a bit of a wander around. (I would also like to acknowledge at the
> beginning my appreciation and indebtedness for some first class material
> posted in the last few weeks. This is really working!)
>
> I would add to the Thorndike Laws relayed by Vince Mancuso the 'Law of
> Origin'. Where did the pilots come from? As Tony Kern points out, a
> pilot entering a CRM learning session in, say, the Airr Force Reserve,
> has a definable background, which will include lots of opportuntiies to
> practice group skills (starting with parade ground drill). Many pilots,
> however, will get into an airline after a training regime characterised
> by least-cost accumulation of only the minimum test-passing
> competencies. Pilots from this category may have some very undesirable
> habits -- which they can hardly be blamed for, that being 'the system'
> -- but which will need to be dealt with. You have to know the current
> state of knowledge/ skills/attitudes in your troops, and you can only do
> that by testing them.
>
> (Curious isn't it that most (all?) pilot training programs' earliest
> focus is on going solo, with later consolidation also done as a solo
> operator, when most professional pilots will spend most of their career
> flying as a crew member?)
>
> I'd also add the 'Law of Age'. Thorndike's Laws are clearly cognizant of
> adult-learning theory, as there will be few children in CRM programs. As
> we get older (and it's worse for men than women) our ability to learn
> skills diminishes. (The good news is that, at least pre-Alzheimers, your
> ability to absorb knowledge increases.) In developing or maintaining
> skills, older pilots need to do more practice (see The Law of Exercise).
> (Whether they are doing it or not is another question. But they should
> be.)
>
> Next is what I call the 'Cargo Cult'* mentality. CRM programs are
> brought to the pilots, dropped in their laps. Naah, no good, send
> something alse. Yet Thorndike's Laws can, collectively, be seen as a
> case for auto-didacticism -- self-learning, self-training. The Company
> might deliver a CRM package four times a year. You should do something
> every day. (OK, take Sundays off.) The individual is the only person who
> can maintain the regime.
>
> So here's what you do, Marc. Get the pilots to work out their own 'how
> we should fly as a crew' routines and training. They sit down at a desk,
> ordinary chairs, side-by-side, flight manual open at the 'cockpit' page,
> air route maps, departure and approach plates handy. (Anyone old enough
> to recognize the very first CRM sessions?) By 'flying' mission after
> mission, from pre- to post-flight procedures, no short cuts -- every
> procedure, intercept departure radial, fly the track, let down, good
> weather and bad, etc -- they first work out allocation of duties between
> Pilot Flying (PF) and Pilot Not Flying (PNF), and then, through more
> practice, adjust, re-practise, until they have written their own
> procedures. (A flight manual for a large jet would be a handy reference
> in PF/PNF task allocation routines.) Yep, basic indeed. And if they feel
> a little awkward about the process, a tad embarrassed, then that's good
> practice, too, practice at operating under stress. Shouldn't cost too
> much, either.
>
> Hope this is of use.
>
> Cheers
>
> Doug
>
> * 'Cargo Cult'. During WWII, New Guinea natives from primitive
> tribes, many of which had had no contact with other people, saw the
> occasional cargo 'plane fall from the sky. On entering the wreckage,
> they found piles of goodies, like food. In following years, curious
> clearings in the jungle were seen on remote mountain sides. On closer
> inspection, crude models of aeroplanes were spotted, 'parked' in the
> middle of each clearing. Contact with these tribes revealed their belief
> that there was a god up there somewhere, who flew goodies around in
> large 'birds'. As birds will alight where they spot one of their kin,
> then, if they made the right preparations, it was only a matter of time
> before all this bounty dropped out of the sky. So convinced were they,
> of this ensuing good fortune, that other food- producing activities had
> virtually been put on hold. These people were nearly starving.
> Anthropologists called it the 'Cargo Cult' mentality. Thereafter, the
> term has been applied to folk who sit around waiting for the necessities
> of life to drop into their lap. (By the mid-60s, the 'god' had been
> given a name -- ELLBEJAY -- Lyndon Baines Johnson.)
>
> Another New Guinea story. Famine relief had the Air Force flying
> choppers into remote villages in C-130s. Curious natives would always
> turn up at the strip. They needed little persuasion to assist unload. At
> one place, where contact with the outside world was very recent, the
> notion of a mother bird delivering her progeny animated enthusiastic
> unloading -- assistance at the 'birth'. When the Herc turned up a few
> weeks later to pick up the chopper there was not a single volunteer to
> assist with the reverse procedure!