Air Traffic Management

In this article I will look at learning the ATC culture during initial training and the corresponding role of the instructor. But before I begin, a short preface:

Of knowledge and culture.

We could say that to be successful in a particular field one would need a combination of ingredients, rather like a good balanced recipe. These ingredients are:

•  knowledge of what needs to be done,

• knowledge and application of how to behave in the environment and

• good doses of luck, audacity and timing.

 (this article appeared in the latest issue of the Hindisght magazine)

It would be very interesting to have a look at how luck, audacity and timing play their role in successful ATC, but that would need a separate article with a focus on ¨The other factors¨ (maybe in a future edition of Hindsight?). In this one I will focus on the first two points on the list which, for the sake of brevity, we could call:

• Knowledge the one I referred to as ‘knowledge of what needs to be done’ and

• Culture (short for: ¨understanding and thriving in the culture¨) the I referred to as ‘knowledge and application of how to behave….’

Whereas knowledge could be considered as a ´hard´ component – you know it and apply it or you don´t, culture is softer, and the subtleties of behaviour are harder to teach and/or learn.

 Of learning:

In any learning activity there is both formal and informal learning. We could say that formal learning is what is contained in a training syllabus and therefore what will be formally taught in a training establishment. Informal learning, on the other hand, is what a person learns that will help them in the tasks they are to carry out, but which is not itself part of the syllabus.

To illustrate the four items above, if we consider a student learning how to drive, then:

• Knowledge is what the student knows in terms of traffic signs, right of way and of handling of the car.

• Culture is how to stay calm (or lose it), how to behave in traffic jams or in busy parking lots, when to use or not the horn, etc.

• Formal learning would be what the student learns on the books and during the practice hours with their instructor.

• Informal learning would be what they learn (or shouldn´t learn) by observing their father drive through the years.

ATC training

If we apply all the above to initial ATC training, we see that in terms of formal training, we have many hard objectives focusing on the knowledge component – e.g. all the basic subjects like Navigation, Meteorology, ATM, … (with the exclusion of Human Factors) and all the procedures in the Rating part including most of the practice in the simulator. At the end of this, the student who passes will ¨know what needs to be done¨, will obtain a student licence and will be eligible to start unit training.

Formal learning in terms of culture is mainly covered in the Human Factors modules and in others dealing with the professional environment. These modules teach how to ¨behave in the environment¨ and include some application through role play and familiarisation visits.

This is already a very good start, however since the ATC culture is very rich, in my opinion one can do more – and in many schools actually more is done. In the definition of ATC culture, I would include amongst other aspects how to behave in an operations room, how to work in a team, safety culture*, and the concept of service in terms of efficiency and order.

In terms of a training organisation, it is never too early to introduce as much ATC culture to students as possible. It is true that initial training is detached from the operations room and that there are still training phases later on, such as the on the job training, when the student will have the opportunity to learn culture. However from experience, on the one hand students are eager for information on how it will feel to work as a controller and are sponges for behaviours and attitudes (good and bad ones) in the ATC world and on the other hand having the students already assimilating part of the culture as early as possible is of great benefit for their understanding of what the ATC world is about.

Culture can be transmitted during training in a number of ways, a couple of which are:

• imitating the real environment whenever it benefits training and

• raising awareness amongst the instructional team, especially the simulator instructors, about their function as role models for the profession.

In the rest of this article I will develop on these two aspects which in the end are intrinsically linked with one another.

Imitating the environment

When imitating the life environment during training, it is important to keep the balance between two things:

On the one hand that students are still learning and therefore that it is normal to do, and learn from, mistakes, and

On the other hand that even though they are working in a simulated environment, there is a certain degree of seriousness and responsibility and that everyone needs to do their best to ensure safe services.

 * how a controller behaves professionally to ensure that while he or she is working, safety is facilitated at all times and that the system within which he or she works maintains an adequate level of safety or improves it),

On other aspects, the same should apply: If it is forbidden to use mobile or smart phones in an operational room, the same should be applied in a simulator. If it is a good practice to be at least five minutes early for a hand over in the operational world, then it is also positive to teach the student punctuality, the time a good handover needs, and the need to be there a little early so that their colleagues can have a full and well deserved break. Students should be taught not only the hard and fast procedures (knowledge) but also how to address and talk to colleagues, adjacent centres, pilots and others. They should not only be taught how to execute a procedure, but also that they are part of a safety chain and that there are defensive ways of controlling that will strengthen that chain. They should learn that procedures are there for a reason and that the justifications for bending or omitting them are very rare if not nonexistent….Teaching the culture, improves safety awareness and safety.

And who needs to transmit all these softer elements of behaviour and attitude? Well, the instructor.

The instructor as a role model

As mentioned in the example above, a lot of what a new driver has learned is what he or she has observed their parents, senior siblings, or significant others doing. It is like that in all aspects of life; our children do what we as parents, what society at large, what elder siblings, what TV and what cinema do. Our culture is taught informally through observation, trial and error. There are some who learn quickly, some who learn even more to the extent of manipulating others or of challenging the status quo, and others still who never learn and end up in trouble.

Now ATC being quite a closed environment, all that parenting, sibling, cinema and TV, especially in the early (but many times super intensive) days of initial training is condensed in the few instructors who have lived in and are part of the ATC culture that the students can interact with, observe and scrutinise.

So it is very important that we instructors are aware of our role and that while walking on the catwalk we need to act as positively and as naturally as possible.

What follows are a number of areas where we instructors, apart from teaching hard and fast procedures, need to be aware of our role in passing on ATC culture in the knowledge that we are ourselves being observed for such behaviour.

Setting limits

It is very important that we instructors set limits to what is and is not allowed in a simulator, both in terms of controlling traffic and in attitude and behaviour off the mike. We also need to be aware that we are under observation as we interact with our colleagues, on how we treat diverging opinions with respect, on how we correct mistakes, on how we follow rules…..

In terms of safety, for example, it is of benefit, as I commented above, to allow the student to try out new things and to push his or her limit, however this should never go to the extent as to the impression that everything could be tried out and that everything is allowed, after all ATC training is not a videogame, even if it may look like one to someone who knows nothing about its culture and goals. I am a firm believer that safety, and its paramount priority, that in our job we cannotbring aircraft too close together, shall be transmitted at all times to students.

On the same theme but outside of the immediate operational environment, we as instructors are being observed for our attitude in the simulation room: arriving late, excessive talking or laughing during an exercise should be stopped both for students and for us. ATC culture does not allow that.

Teamwork

Teamwork is another area where the instructor is being observed. In training theory we insist a lot on the necessity of good teamwork, both between controllers in a unit and between all those involved in the chain. Not all students come to training with an innate disposition to working in a team and that a team will help them and will improve safety. Some have individualistic traits that need to be curbed. In addition to teaching procedures, we should observe and correct students’ attitude towards one another and with other people in the environment such as pilots or assistants. Also, charity begins at home and we are part of that chain and we also work within a team. We should not forget that how we relate professionally with others, such as pseudo pilots or administrative members of the team is being observed by our future controllers, who are registering: ¨This is how a real controller behaves¨.

The ¨In the real world we do it differently¨ syndrome

Students look for guidance in instructors on how to apply the procedures there are being taught.

Some instructors feel the need to go further than simply teach procedures and it is of great benefit for a student to work with an instructor who explains the background as to why a procedure exists and to explain the links and rationale between procedures and how we used these with real traffic. I remember to this day an instructor on my initial ATC course who would take time to explain to my colleagues and I how he had used a certain procedure on a given day and why it came in very convenient for him to know it. He was patient and a good story teller. He used to make us feel like we were already working with him in the ops room.

On the other hand, there are only very few things which are worse than an instructor telling a student that ´in the real world´ things are done differently and that a procedure is only being used for ´school purposes´. The contextual difference between the application of a procedure in an academy and in operations is considerable, but instructors need to understand that a student who has only a few months’ experience in an academy and has not yet worked in operations cannot fully understand this context. Running before learning to walk is as illogical as trying to teach complex operational contexts to students who do not have the experience yet to appreciate them.

Boredom is an Instructor´s worst enemy

Students are still learning things instructors (should) already know. Students are still pushing their traffic threshold; ours should have already been pushed up. Students are seeing an exercise for the first time: for us it is maybe the tenth or twentieth time we are seeing the same exercise. The student is performing; we are observing.

All the elements above mean that our mental activity rate is many times slower than that of the student. This is part of training and part of our job. We should never try to make things interesting for our benefit. We should not, for example, ask the students to try new things that they have not covered. We should not, as mentioned in the part just above, oblige the student to do something in a different way to that which they have been taught already if the main reason for doing this is not for their benefit but for us to moderate our boredom. We need to remember that students have a very limited set of tools in their bag and they are still learning how these tools fit together. Adding more new tools to it will not make them better or quicker, it will just overwhelm them. It will give them the impression that you are teaching them a completely different thing to that taught on the course and we risk creating an impression of conflict between our team of instructors. It reflects badly on us as a team and on our message of teamwork.

We should neither fall into the trap of showing disinterest nor fall asleep during an exercise (like one of my instructors used to do sixteen years ago when I was a student – I still remember it!). Before we arrive at that point, it is time to move on in our career and do something else!

In conclusion, in this article I have tried to highlight the fact that ATC culture is something that ATC training professionals should be aware of as something to actively teach because it helps students to make sense of the working world and of its modus operandi. Teaching culture is not achieved mostly through formal training, since knowledge about a culture only goes some way, so the main way is by being immersed in it. Culture is soft and informal. We instructors are the ones who are best placed, in the first days of a controller’s career, to begin developing awareness of this culture. This needs to be done by being clear on the behaviour expected from the students and by being prepared to correct and comment upon this and by being aware that instructors are role models and that our behaviour in the simulation is being scrutinised by our future colleagues, who would like to look a bit like us!

Before I close I would like to make a point on one final cultural trait – Professionalism. ATC is a profession which we should be proud of it. As instructors we are the initiators (I intentionally did not write bouncers!) to the profession for all the students who eventually will become our colleagues. We need to carry the banner of our profession high. We should never talk down our profession, and when we need to criticise things (since the right sort of as criticism is healthy) we should do it constructively and in a way which can be understood by students with only a few months of experience. The analogy might be like talking about feelings to a six year old. We also need to implicitly pass on the message to our students that they made the right choice, that they are in a great professional environment and that it is good to be in ATC. The best way we can communicate this is with the message which is written all over our body.

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A new edition of my favourite ATC related magazine: Hindsight from Eurocontrol, is out now.

This edition focuses on fatigue in air traffic control. The articles presented range from how fatigue can affect performance to practical hints on how to use caffeine (and how not to abuse it!) to combat fatigue.

The magazine blends the theoretical with the practical in a perfect way. It is an easy but useful read in these hot (in some places at least) summer months, not to just read at work, but also to take to the beach or home and read before a sweet summer siesta

Click here to download a free copy of  Hindsight on fatigue

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I have just read an Article on Skybrary on the uncontained engine failure that suffered the Qantas A-380-800 a month and two days ago.

The article is quite detailed. It is the first time that I easily find such detailed information on an incident in such a short span of time.  Keep it up Skybrary!

Amongst others, it describes how the crew had to respond to the engine failure as well as a high number of messages of secondary failures. Quoting the article some of these messages were:

• Engines 1 and 4 operating in degraded mode (some air data or engine parameters are not available)
• GREEN hydraulic system (powered by engines 1 & 2) – low system pressure and low fluid level
• YELLOW hydraulic system (powered by engines 3 & 4) – engine 4 pump errors
• Failure of AC bus 1 and AC Bus 2
• Flight controls operating in alternate law (some flight control protections reduced)
• Wing slats inoperative
• Reduced aileron control
• Reduced spoiler control
• Landing gear control and indicator warnings
• Multiple brake system messages
• Engine anti-ice and air data sensor messages
• Multiple fuel system messages, including a fuel jettison fault (the latter fault precluded the jettison of fuel which would normally be made when a long haul air turn back is made to avoid a significantly overweight landing)
• Centre of gravity messages
• …

To note that the flight crew for this flight was composed of 5 persons:

• the aircraft Captain, as pilot in command (PIC)
• the First Officer (FO), acting as copilot
• a Second Officer (SO)
• a second Captain, who was undergoing training as a Check Captain (CC)
• a Supervising Check Captain (SCC), who was overseeing the training of the CC.

What will also be interesting but which does not come clear from the preliminary report is the extent of the contribution of a 5 person flight crew had over the positive resolution of the incident [i.e. successful landing and evacuation, 0 injuries]. Were 5 better than 2? To what extent? how? Or were they of hindrance?  How did they distribute the roles? Etc. Would a 2 person flight crew have sufficed?

I guess these human factors considerations will be delved into during the full report…

The article contains the safety recommendation, a couple of pictures  of the damaged engine as well as a link to the preliminary report which was issued on 3/12/10 [more pics in the preliminary report]

For the Skybrary article, click here.

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I have recently read with interest a White Paper written by Eurocontrol and the U.S. FAA, with the participation of a number of European ANSPs on Human performance in ATM safety.

This paper explains how Human performance and safety are linked in ATM.  It does this by exploring four areas:

• Investing in human performance,
• Understanding human performance,
• Exploring the link between human performance and system safety and
• Looking at priority human performance issues for future ATM

In a nutshell, the white paper argues that “no matter how advanced … ATM systems become, humans will be on centre stage as the decision makers…” and that it is therefore important to understand human performance, to invest in it and to manage it well.

It also explains how a human factors case is an integral part of a systems safety case. “An HF-informed safety case is a richer and more realistic evaluation of safety risk, with the human contribution … fully represented. This enables decision-makers to make sound decisions”

Finally it looks at the future in ATM and on how the two main research and development programmes, SESAR and NextGen, one on each side of the Atlantic include human performance in their work programmes.

The document is very accessible: easy to read and only 29 pages long [including quite a few diagrams ] It also gives references to human factors tools, guidelines, databases, websites books and training that you might want to dig into if you are interested in the subject.

Here is a link to the document.

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As you can see from my previous posts, I recently got interested in the definitions of terms in ATM. I then started my own list with references on this blog.

Coincidentally Eurocontrol has just released its ATM lexicon, which is a wiki-based database containing definitions of ATM terms.

The site claims it has over 600 entries as I am writing and aims for over 1500 by the end of 2010.

To access this free resource click here

I ran a cross check with my list of definitions which can be accessed by clicking the ‘Definitions‘ tab on the top right hand side of this blog. I have deleted all the terms I had entered but which are found in the ATM Lexicon. I have decided to keep those definitions which are either still missing from the ATM Lexicon, or where I found another source with diverging definitions.

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One of the Common Content Rating Training Objectives [all ratings need to cover this objective] is: Analyse examples of pilot and controller communication for effectiveness.

Here is an example which would be worth to discuss.

Thanks to Paul Neering for pointing me to this.

If you would have other examples, please let me know.

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Over the recent couple of years, I started observing a certain reduction in the movement towards harmonisation and coordination at European level in our business.

The rationale, as I understand it, is as follows:

• Coordination and harmonisation as we knew it, i.e. through a neutral European agency – Eurocontrol, is too slow.
• Coordination and harmonisation as we knew it was not cost efficient – we have to pay a budget to maintain the agency, moreover the agency is taking work that could be done by our privatised / corporatised service providers and the cherry on the cake: it requires our ‘free’ input through consultation groups, reviews etc.
• If there would be a need of coordination and harmonisation, European legislators could decree, issue standards or rules and oversee that the free market adapts to fulfill the requirements. The legislator would then simply need a system [through another rule] to ensure the oversight.
• Since Europe is creating functional airspace blocks [FABs], a good deed of coordination and harmonisation will be done internally within the new structure. What remains will be dealt with through rule making and the market.

So European ATM actors, partly due to this rationale, reduced the commitment towards harmonisation and coordination at European level. In many areas, the effort by the ANSPs are going into the constitution of the FABs and to create coordination and harmonisation substructures within each FAB. We have CNS coordination, operational concept and implementation, human resources, safety management, and another number of coordination and harmonisation initiatives within each FAB in the becoming. The same people and companies say they had [have] no effort left for European wide coordination and harmonisation.

European ATM created a new layer of coordination. I think this is a good thing as the level of complexity of the system requires it. However, European ATM should not believe that this new layer replaces the old one: There will still be 9 FABs [once, inshalla, they come to be] and European coordination will still be needed.

Thus the creation of the Network Manager. In my eyes it is the answer to the need of coordination at European level for network capacity, efficiency, and environment. It is the hub for inter FAB, inter  airport and airport-FAB coordination, for coordinating the resolutions to crises that affect the whole network and for coordinating deployment of technology that becomes available through research and development that will be necessary to improve the service levels of the network. It will harmonise processes and procedures where coordination is necessary.

However, it is still not seeing the importance of coordinating human performance aspects that would affect the network performance. I think that in 2010 and also in 2020 and beyond, the human will remain the corner stone of the ATM system. Coordinating training processes and initiatives, for example,  especially in these times of change, is not only a necessity but would also make business sense as each FAB is undergoing similar changes. This however is not the case in the current way of thinking. Training and other human performance aspects are still seen as at the periphery and with marginal added-benefit if coordinated at a European scale. So in the mean time, each FAB is recreating the harmonisation and coordination processes that used to [and should continue to] exist at European level.

Although not going as far as in the case of human performance, I feel that safety, is following a similar path. After the efforts following the Uberlingen accident, we are back to believing that what is needed centrally is to oversee and regulate the  management and performance of each of the entities, and to continue, at somewhat a lower profile to coordinate safety initiatives and sharing of information. More could be done.

So to conclude, I think that coordination at European level is necessary. The fact that instead of 36 entities, only 9 will exist [when they will exist] just changes the number but not the requirement. Intra FAB coordination is an extra and necessery layer of coordination and harmonisation but does not substitute inter-FAB coordination. The Network Management is an answer to this new face of coordination and harmonisation and this is a very positive step at improving the network performance. However the Network manager and European decision makers in the field are still not seeing human performance as part of its scope. This is in my opinion a need as human performance a major contributor to network performance and also because intra-FAB initititives are simply recreating 9 ways of doing things in the field, which is an inefficient way of doing business.

I hope that human performance is included in the scope of the Network Manager in its role of coordinating and harmonising all the components that contribute to the network’s performance sooner rather than later
.

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In a recent post on his ATC-blog, Wayne Farley listed 13 charecteristics of an air traffic controller

The list is very good indeed and that is why I decided to share it on this post.

I wanted to add some thoughts that the list made me think about:

First comments on the content of the list:

Wayne mentions multitasking as the number 2 characteristic: I think that nowadays there is a debate amongst HF specialists whether the skill is actually multi tasking [doing many things at once] which some doubt whether it actually exists in humans or the capacity of rapidly but sequentially moving between small tasks without losing the thread. Rapidity and not losing the thread are the key skills here.

Another item on the list, is making decisions under pressure. Here I just wanted to point to a different term for the same thing: Recognition primed decision: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recognition_primed_decision which is a model also used outside air traffic control and which describes how people make quick, effective decisions when faced with complex situations. In this model, the decision maker is assumed to generate a possible course of action, compare it to the constraints imposed by the situation, and select the first course of action that is not rejected.

Then there is another characteristic that might be missing from the list. This is Recovery from failure. As like in any complex systems an amount of failures are inevitable, a controller needs to be able to recover and not give up.

Then some further related literature.

The list reminded me of a research I had read some time ago issued by Eurocontrol on the coginitive model and processes that govern air traffic control:  and
another on the model for task and job description for air traffic controllers

The former document gives a basic understanding of the cognitive components and processes in ATC. It talks about situational awareness, decision making, information processing, long term and working memories as well as interactions with the system, and how these processes are used in monitoring, controlling, checking and diagnosing traffic.

The second document proposes a model which explains controllers’ tasks. The model is divided into cognitive tasks such as situational awareness and decision making, behavioral tasks such as R/T comms, providing separation and providing information to pilots, direct support tasks such as updating working knowledge and ensuring technical equipment is functioning, as well as indirect support tasks such as coordination with other team members and providing training.

Both documents provide an insight of what the job of air traffic controller is all about. Where Wayne’s list adds to this is in the emotional intelligence aspects of work like Authority, teamwork, tollerance, emotional stability and learning. The studies on these areas are spread elsewhere. [if you want ask me and we can find them together]

Finally some comments on the exclusivity element of being a controller.

Reading about the characteristics, made me think that in the end air traffic control is not as exclusive as some might want to portray it. But if it is not that exclusive, why do so many candidates fail training admittance tests and training? Wheras it is true that a controller’s job requires specific skills, I would like to point a difference between an innate set of skill and one which can be acquired through training. As with many other things in this world, people fall under a scale between those who have innate conditions of doing a task to those who cannot absolutely never acquire the skills even with a lot of training and devotion. The same is true for air traffic control. It requires a specific set of skills and quite a few people can never attain the level required ot safely practice the profession. However the distribution of those who can versus those who cannot, in my opinion, is not different from other professions. The problem with air traffic control is that in many cases there is a lot of potential wasted due to bad training design and approach and of attitude from those who are already part of the club and want to feel as part of the elite few. Due to this attitude towards becoming a controller, the selection test become harder, because they aready look at a considerably advanced level of skill developmen in some of the areas.  I have written about this in a previous entry and will not harm to repeat my opinion almost 4 years later: In my opinion, if training [and consequently selection tests] could be redesigned with a more pedagogical approach to learner’s needs, more young people could become controllers. The investment up fron to change certain things might be steep, but the return on investment would mean more controller availaiblity and less wastege of [in pure terms] invested money in training hours down the drain because a student fails mid-way through his training.

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2010/11/17 After having deleted all duplications with the Eurocontrol ATM lexicon, I have now added new definitions which are not yet included in the lexicon.

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2010/09/20 Other definitions added today.

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I am starting a series of entries containing definitions related to the air traffic management world.

I also give the source of the definitions.

The main idea behind this series is to give a simple access to definitions [no logins, etc]

When definitions are accessible elsewhere in a simple manner, I will simply make a link to external websites.

I had to start somewhere and I started with the definitions contained in the European directive for a Community air traffic controller licence.

You can find the list of terms here.

I will be very happy to hear from you.

Do you have links to other definitions? please tell me and I’ll link them.

What do you think of the series?

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Three years ago, Eurocontrol set to develop training material to sensiblise air traffic controllers on the risks that can occure during position handovers and to provide suggestions and tools to minimise these risks.

In preparation for the development of this training material, a research study was conducted to identify the factors affecting handovers and takeovers. The document referred to here reports the findings of this research. It includes the following sections:

• A literature review including reports on the study performed by the National Air Traffic Services Ltd. UK (NATS) on handovers and the establishment of best practices based on this study;
• Interviews of Safety Experts which summarises the interviews on handover-related safety hazards conducted with the safety managers of two Air Navigation Services Providers (ANSPs);
• Training Material Review, the existing pedagogic material relative to position handovers in Europe is reviewed and analysed (prior to the Web-based training on factors dealing with handover/takeover produced by EUROCONTROL in 2006);
• Identification of the Main Handover-related Safety Issues’, provides, based on the information collected during the study, a preliminary list of the main handover-related safety issues that should be addressed to improve handover processes and
• Key findings of this preliminary study on handover

It also contains  a number of checklists whcih were in use in different European ANSPs

It can be found here

Enjoy the read.

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