Running head: FLIGHT DECK INTERFACE

EMBRY RIDDLE AERONAUTICAL UNIVERSITY

SFTY 409
Mr. Dave Baptiste
Pratik Patel, 2277721
November 29, 2014
Activity 6.3 Flight Deck Interface

Running head: FLIGHT DECK INTERFACE

Technology that involves the human-machine interface involves the flight crew
and other parties: maintenance, ground operations, weather advisers, air and ground
traffic control, and others. Most of the time, the human-machine interface often helps in
the event of an emergency, where correct, timely decisions make the difference between
life and death (Rodrigues & Cusick, 2012). At first, this technology was incorporated into
certain details of the early airplanes, however, as airplane design knowledge and humanfactor research improved, flight deck improved as well. Improvements in flight decks
have improved safety. Some flight deck technologies that have improved safety are:
traffic collision avoidance system (TCAS), flight management system (FMS), and etc.
(Rodrigues & Cusick, 2012).
The traffic collision avoidance system (TCAS) is an electronic aircraft collision
warning system to help prevent dangerous midair collision accidents, which generally
involve a great loss of life (Rodrigues & Cusick, 2012). The flight management system
(FMS) is an integration of four major systems: the flight management computer system
(FMCS), the digital flight control system (DFCS), the autothrottle (A/T), and the inertial
reference system (IRS). The FMS is designed to help the crew and allow them to access
to the total range of its performance, navigation, and advisory data computation
capability at any time and in any flight control mode (Rodrigues & Cusick, 2012).
Even though the use of computer technology can improve safety, experience in a
variety of systems and applications shows that use of computer technology and computerbased interface raises issues related to how humans operate, troubleshoot, and maintain
these systems (Human Factors and Human-Machine Interfaces, 1997). Issues that arise
with human-machine interaction arise with introduction of computer-based technology:

Running head: FLIGHT DECK INTERFACE

(a) the need to address a class of design errors that persistently occur in a wide range of
safety-critical applications or recur in a successive designs for the same system; and (b)
how to define the role and activities of the human operator with the same level of rigor
and specificity as system hardware and software (Human Factors and Human-Machine
Interfaces, 1997).

Running head: FLIGHT DECK INTERFACE

References
National Research Council. (1997). Human Factors and Human-Machine Interfaces. In
Digital Instrumentation and Control Systems in Nuclear Power Plants: Safety and
Reliability Issues (Chapter 7). Retrieved from
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=5432&page=59
Rodrigues, C. C., & Cusick, S. K. (2012). Commercial Aviation Safety (5th ed.). McGrawHill Professional.