The ergonomics of flight management systems: fixing holes in the cockpit certification net

Recent air traffic control regulations mandate the installation of computer -based flight management systems in airliners across Europe. Integrating an d certifying add-on cockpit systems is a long and costly process, which in its current form cannot meaningfully address ergonomics aspects. Two levels of problems occur: add-on systems carry many "classic" HCl failures, which could easily be addressed with modified certification requirements. Furthe r, adding new technology changes practice, creates new skill and knowledge demands and produces new forms of error, which are more difficult to assess in advance. However, one innovative certification approach for add-on cock pit systems, based on the use of a representative population of user pilots , was found to be promising. This method minimizes the subjective bias of i ndividual pilots in addition to defining pass/fail criteria in an operation al environment. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.