The VNAV Tutor: addressing a mode awareness difficulty for pilots of glass cockpit aircraft

Abstract

One of the major tasks of pilots of modern aircraft is monitoring and understanding the status and behavior of the auto-flight system, i.e., mode awareness. In order to maintain mode awareness in the dynamic environment, pilots must be continuously vigilant of indications from several locations within the cockpit. Lacking accurate and complete system knowledge and interfaces that clearly present the system state and constraints, pilots may misunderstand the control modes, pilots often cite vertical path navigation (VNAV) as a flight management system function that "surprises" them. The VNAV Tutor, a computer-based training system, was developed to address this issue. The VNAV Tutor attempts to improve pilots' understanding of VNAV control modes and the interaction of the mode control panel functions with the flight management system during VNAV usage. An evaluation showed that the VNAV Tutor enhanced both the conceptual understanding and the operational use of the vertical navigation function by pilots transitioning to aircraft with sophisticated auto-flight systems.