A Distant Dream?

Safety and pilot efficiency are not solely functions of the West. The regulator along with the management needs to hold hands with the pilots and march towards a paperless cockpit. And therein lays the foundation of a safe flight and a bright future for aviation.

With worry lines scrawled across his forehead, mind and body fatigued even before a ‘nine-hour flight’, Neale entered the cockpit of his Gulfstream 550 three hours before the flight. With 32 years in aviation and 12,000 hours under his belt, he was a stickler for procedures. As was the usual practice for reasons not understood, the take-off was scheduled around midnight. His long career was a mix of military, commercial and business aviation. Single-engine jets, twin turboprops, four-engine heavy jets, ‘fly-by-wire’ A320 and the G550 were all part of his impressive repertoire. Yet this late evening he was perplexed. His whole career flashed past his eyes in a matter of seconds. He had started his flying career in a HT-2 with a thin checklist. Memorising it was demanding at that age, but soon turned out to be a cakewalk. He graduated to the IL-76 where there were seven five-inch thick manuals. Eventually, on the A320, there was a ray of hope of a ‘paperless cockpit’, a concept he had read and dreamt about.

While technology had galloped, it was the pilots who had the onerous task of keeping up with the huge data and knowledge bank. It had been recognised early that a pilot slapped with ‘data overload’ was a bigger threat to safety than a computer virus or a thunderstorm. And thus developed the concept of a paperless cockpit. Scientists, engineers, regulators and test pilots were in the race to eliminate this threat. However, several decades passed without any headway. The cockpit has been transformed from a technology haven to a paper mess.

Neale took a fresh look at the task ahead. There were files, folders and stacks on both sides of his seat in big enough holders to accommodate all those. Also provided was a 2’x1’x1’ cavity between the two seats to accommodate any document the pilot may have to refer to in an emergency. Essential manuals were stacked in a cupboard at the entrance. The entire space had been stacked to the brim. The spill overs had been handed over to the cabin crew.

Neale saw his dreams of a paperless cockpit shattered. Before the flight he had the herculean task of updating route charts as also checking the currency of manuals and documents onboard. Via a series of orders and regulations, the regulator had ganged up with the administrators and management to sabotage the dreams of the pilot fraternity. There was no future in sight for a paperless cockpit.

Answer to Data Overload

Strange as it may seem, one of the prime reasons for the demise of a paperless cockpit is the lack of vision among the regulators. Caught in a quagmire of rules and regulations they chose to ignore the threat of data overload on pilots. Why is this a safety issue? Well, not very difficult to fathom. A pilot is seen as a human interface for everyone and between everything. He is also the only link between the aircraft on the one hand and computers, passengers, engineers, manufacturer and the management on the other. He is the physical manifestation of all that aviation stands for and hence carries the cross. The rules are directed at him and for him. The casualty finally is safety. What is overlooked is that a pilot has to also fly the aircraft.

Not much thought has been given to the fact that at the end of the day, the pilot is a human being flying other human beings. He is a being with limited mental and physical capacity. His reactions, under varying circumstances or environments and with different inputs, are bound to be unpredictable. It should be the concern of all stakeholders that the reaction of the pilot is always predictable under a given set of conditions. It is, therefore, important that the pilot operates in as simple and predictable an environment as possible. To make this happen, one must accept that the pilot is the key to safety. Together all protagonists need to work to strengthen his hands. His limitations need to be understood and catered to. A lawyer can well read his books in his chambers and interpret it. The management can design complex working conditions and mandate impractical rules from the comfort of their offices. The regulator can frame laws and design limitations on aviators without ever having to follow them. But finally it is for the pilot to interpret the laws, navigate through their complexities and implement them while flying safely.

Imagine a world where the regulator, the air traffic controller, the management and the engineers came together to interpret the laws leaving the pilot with the responsibility to fly. Information is fed to the captain as and when he needs it and only as much he need it. Any absence in bringing the relevant information to the notice of the pilot is the responsibility of the groundbased support system, which includes the ATC, management and the regulator. For emergencies, the pilot only needs to call upon the aircraft computers for guidance. Together, the environment and technology hold the pilot’s hands and bring him on ground safely. That is crew resource management (CRM). And that is what the paperless cockpit is all about. Nothing could be more impractical than expecting the pilot to open a book in the middle of a bad weather, in a high-density traffic environment when faced with an emergency. In the 21st century, both technology and human beings are supposed to be evolved. A successful marriage between the two shall be a giant leap to safety.

Enhancing Pilot Data Overload

While a pilot is not exactly lovable, he may well be enviable. Notwithstanding either of the above, there are factors that add to data overload. A brief examination of the factors may help the safety administrators and the stakeholders to mitigate the risks of data overload in the cockpit.

A case in point is the new Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) regulations. The rules have been accepted as extremely complex and impossible to decipher easily. The regulators have advised the operators to put in place software to facilitate easy understanding of the rules. The suggestion, however, has not been widely implemented by business aviation as the software is expensive and there is no standardised programme. The responsibility of adhering to it rests upon the pilot. Incredible! Flying an aircraft is demanding. Interpreting complex rules manually and implementing them is superhuman. Certainly, a good case to leave the poor pilot out of the loop or give him a DGCA-approved programme.

Then of course there are the Notices to Airmen (NOTAMs). The list of NOTAMs for Mumbai FIR, which runs into a couple of pages in small font, is a nightmare for pilots. It is ridiculous to expect pilots to go through reams of paper before a flight. Undoubtedly, NOTAMs are important, but what is important is not so much what one reads but what one fails to read. Now here is a threat that few appear to have realised. The threat is actually drowned in the huge mass of paper in the cockpit. Welcome to paperless cockpit!

At last count, the regulator expected a pilot to carry onboard 18 documents/licenses. The pilot is expected to be responsible for their carriage and is fined very heavily in case of their absence. All these documents are in public domain. Hence their carriage is not only senseless but also enhances the weight of the aircraft and fuel cost.

Finally, the burden of carrying the plethora of charts and manuals in the aircraft! Updating those is another matter altogether. It is not humanly possible for a pilot. To hold a pilot responsible for it has evolved from being ridiculous to vindictive. The number of charts is so huge that none of the database in the aircraft can support it. It is an open and shut case for doing away with the mandatory requirement of carrying paper charts or manuals.