Abstract:
Flying a high-technology fighter with high stakes and under high g-force is not only an
issue of skilled psychomotor performance but also of real-time decision-making involving
situation awareness, choice amongst alternatives, time pressure and risk assessment.
There is no aeronautical decision-making (ADM) training program for military pilots in
existence neither in the R. O. C. Air Force nor around the world, although academic
research had recognized the training needs for aeronautical decision-making. This
research consists of three studies described in six chapters to develop an effective solution
for ADM problems in order to improve military pilots' decision-making in a dynamic and
time-limited tactical environment.
The first chapter is an executive summary comprised by three studies. The second
chapter identified ADM training needs by applied the Human Factors Analysis and
Classification System (HFACS). Without good analysis it is impossible to identify
precisely the training needs and the nature of the training content required for improving
pilots' performance. The third chapter examined five ADM training mnemonics in six
different decision-making scenarios for developing an ADM training program. There are
many ADM mnemonics available. However, there was lack of empirical research
investigating the efficiency of those ADM mnemonics in the real-time tactical
environment. The fourth chapter evaluates the effectiveness of ADM training program by
simulator trials and pencil and paper trials. The fifth chapter is overall discussion,
followed by the final chapter containing conclusions and recommendations.
This research demonstrated that ADM training program did improve pilots' in-flight
decision-making performance. Improvements in pilots' situation assessment and risk
management were obtained, but these were traded-off for response time. To improve the
quality of pilots' decision-making, the ADM training program needs to be coordinated
with real-time simulator scenarios training. The findings have demonstrated that the
ADM training program significantly improved pilots' situation assessment and risk
management. However, it still needs to be established if these performance gains
continue to be evident at a later date during actual operations.
