Primarily for general aviation discussion, but other aviation topics are also welcome.
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By Paul_Sengupta
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1525864
DRirwin wrote:Thanks for all the informative and interesting replies, you have really solidified my interest in this area.


Does Aberdeen have a flying club? You could go for a trial lesson.

DRirwin wrote:To those who have been more combative, one of my other research interests is incivility, including such behaviours expressed online... thanks for the research fodder.


Please stick around on the forum, you'll love it here! ;-)
rats404, johnm liked this
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1525874
DRirwin wrote:Thanks for all the informative and interesting replies, you have really solidified my interest in this area.
To those who have been more combative, one of my other research interests is incivility, including such behaviours expressed online... thanks for the research fodder.


There is a wealth of knowledge on here and I'm sure you've gathered that GA is rather more complicated than you might have imagined!

There are some grumpies on here and some are civil and some aren't :-) It's usually best to ignore the uncivil and focus on the others, unless you are seeking research data of course and here you'll find many a workable seam of material :-)
#1526008
johnm wrote:..

If we look at Gloucestershire airport as a busy General Aviation airport operating in Class G airspace we see that the following activities take place:

Recreational flying in light aircraft, microlights and helicopters
Training in Microlights, light aircraft, helicopters and biz jets
Commercial biz jet traffic
Private biz jet traffic
VFR and IFR journeys in light aircraft, helicopters, microlights and bizjets

...


.. and autogyros ..

.. and quite a lot of military, fixed-wing and helicopter, smallest to largest (up to very large transport doing low approaches), of UK and Allied forces, training and operational. The heaviest, fixed-wing and rotary, yield their own safety issues because of the turbulence they can create which may affect other, especially smaller, aircraft...

.. and there are a number of other airfields with varying degrees of 'Control' (from 'full' to 'none') close by.

[CAA figures just out show that in 2016 it was (again) the 11th busiest in the UK for movements, the top 10 being major airline centres.]

I hope that both Dr Irwin and Ms Taylor get offered GA flights soon, and then embark on flying training in their own right. I assume Aberdeen still has a UAS ..
#1526117
It's good to see that Siouxsie and Dr Amy have pulled some positive pointers out of this thread. I was a little sorry to see that they interpreted some of the responses here as combative and if that includes any of mine , then I apologise unreservedly.

I just thought it a shame that the questionnaire , which must have taken a bit of time to produce , contained quite a few questions which quite a few guys construed as either nonsensical or irrelevant and it would have been something of a waste if inaccurate conclusions were to be drawn if the material became used in anger , as I'm sure that a lot of work must have gone into it.
If either of the ladies concerned [preferably both] do actually end up making inroads to a flying club and are then able to pick peoples brains and get some good quality "yoke time", or even better , "stick time", then they could probably even join us in lampooning some other poor buggers questionnaire in the future...... :D

Meanwhile though , if either of them are around Sassenach land in early April , there may be a very interesting CRM seminar coming up at Old Sarum.
Led by that most venerable and wise old academic , Dr F.Stone . .. :D
#1526119
DRirwin wrote:I will certainly be sticking around - too much knowledge here to pass up!
I will also be looking into flight schools, thanks!

Aberdeen does have a new flying school based at Aberdeen International Airport.

PM if you wish details.

The East of Scotland UAS is based at Leuchars.
#1526265
A fact that seems to be forgotten, I believe, most people who fly are sitting in cattle class commercial aircraft, 200-300 per flight.
But, most aircraft that fly are small GA with 1-2 people on board.
Something in the region of 80% to 20%.
Or so I believe.
Also, the flying schools. Many tend to teach students in a fashion that prepares them for a commercial pilot career, which some continue to do. The training syllabus doesn't address the sole owner/small group grass strip on a farm type of activity. Which carries its own set of risk management problems, no radio, no air traffic controller, no fire cover, hand swinging propellers with no-one to help within a mile if things go wrong etc.
So the view from the flying school may give a somewhat distorted impression of what actually happens.
The LAA has some 8000 members, with many in this category.
As for Leuchars. Now devoid of the RAF, I'm not sure there is much flying school activity there anymore.
#1548906
Thank you to everyone who participated in the questionnaire. My thesis examined the use of non-technical skills (NTS) in general aviation, with the aim being to identify which NTS are used in general aviation. An analysis of Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) general aviation accident reports found that situation awareness, decision making and task management are important skills used frequently in general aviation, but a lack of these skills were found to be contributory factors to air accidents.

The questionnaire further examined situation awareness and decision making as well as risk perception and attitudes towards NTS. A link was established between situation awareness and risk perception, with use of situation awareness being predicted by the number of years or months flying experience in general aviation. The purpose of the decision- making section was to establish the decision- making style pilots use when making decisions. Styles of decision making include rational, intuitive, dependent, avoidance and spontaneous. The decision- making styles were found to differ from each other, with rational decision making being linked to communication, while intuitive decision making was linked to the ability to deal with factors which could cause stress. In terms of risk perception, a link was found between risk and number of flight hours per week.
If you would like more information about the different decision-making styles, please follow the link: http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record ... TeNN2.dpbs

I have now completed my masters and am heading out to new pastures, thanks again for completing the questionnaire.
#1644991
The Admin Team wrote:This post has been approved by The Admin Team and the poster has been asked to feed back their findings.


So this was Dr Irwin’s last student. A similar field to the current one. Well he did say at one point that we were a too interesting bunch of guinea pigs to leave alone. (I paraphrase slightly) so Suzie did feed back, as promised sort of, with a link to her work but got no response. See post above for a link

This was her summary, anyone got any thought or comments?
Aviation pilots are trained to base cockpit decisions on strategic and analytic reasoning, while naturalistic decision-making theory suggests that experts in naturalistic settings, like pilots, make decisions based on experience. In the present study, a scenario-based questionnaire was used, to explore the effects of aviation pilots´ non-technical skills and experience-based decision-making in a cockpit decision-making situation. Also, a negative relation between non-technical skills and decisions from experience was predicted. In addition, the relation between general decision-making styles, non-technical skills and experience-based decision-making, was explored. The results indicate that pilots´ non-technical skills can be predicted by a rational general decision-making style. However, the choice of action in a cockpit decision-making situation could not be predicted by high non-technical skills or high experience-based decision-making, and the expected relation failed to appear. The results are discussed in relation to existing theory.
#1645055
Aviation pilots are trained to base cockpit decisions on strategic and analytic reasoning, while naturalistic decision-making theory suggests that experts in naturalistic settings, like pilots, make decisions based on experience. In the present study, a scenario-based questionnaire was used, to explore the effects of aviation pilots´ non-technical skills and experience-based decision-making in a cockpit decision-making situation. Also, a negative relation between non-technical skills and decisions from experience was predicted. In addition, the relation between general decision-making styles, non-technical skills and experience-based decision-making, was explored. The results indicate that pilots´ non-technical skills can be predicted by a rational general decision-making style. However, the choice of action in a cockpit decision-making situation could not be predicted by high non-technical skills or high experience-based decision-making, and the expected relation failed to appear. The results are discussed in relation to existing theory.


...said Sir Humphrey.