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can send an FMS update.” One issue
pilots in SPO-3 noted about ELP was
that the software did not indicate its
logic in selecting the best alternative.
Johnson says NASA is working with
the Air Force Research Laboratory
on a new version that will generate an
explanation of its choice for the pilot
or ground operator.
The latest conops pedigree comes
from lessons learned in the earlier
SPO-1 and SPO-2 studies. As part of
SPO-1, which used only desktop simula-
tors, NASA separated the captains and
first ofcers with nothing but an open
microphone for coordination. “We flew
them through some highly challeng-
ing off-nominal scenarios—weather,
wheel well fires and diversions,” says
Johnson. “We saw how well two people
could manage one aircraft when they
weren’t sitting right next to each other.
We didn’t put any technologies in to
make it easier, because we wanted to
see where the problems were.”
Researchers determined that there
were crew resource management
(CRM) issues when the pilots were sep-
arated—for instance, there were times
of momentary confusion about who was
the pilot-flying. “We designed a set of
CRM tools and other mitigations to try
and address this,” says Johnson. Along
with those CRM tools, SPO-2 featured
the first-generation ground control sta-
tion, with separated pilots flying more
challenging scenarios.
One aid gives the captain or the
ground-based first ofcer a dedicated
display for recognizing new inputs to
the aircraft’s heading, speed and al-
titude through a mode control panel,
which either pilot can perform in a
dedicated mode. When the captain in-
puts a speed change, for example, the
equivalent field on the first officer’s
display flashes the new information.
In a two-pilot cockpit, the first ofcer
would point to the information to con-
firm the change. In this case, the first
officer uses the open microphone to
confirm along with touching the field
on the screen, which the captain would
do as well on a dedicated display in the
cockpit. “In SPO-2, they found that by
putting in the checks, the frequency of
verbal communications went up,” says
Johnson. Researchers also found dur-
ing that experiment that an aircraft in
trouble required a dedicated ground
operator. “They belong to the captain;
they can no longer support those other
aircraft,” says Johnson.
SPO-3 investigated two concepts
related to the roles of the ground
operator. In one scenario, the super
dispatcher managing 12 aircraft tran-
sitioned into dedicated mode as first
ofcer for a problem aircraft, passing
of the others; and in the other sce-
nario, the super dispatcher kept the 11
nominal aircraft, passing of the prob-
lem aircraft to a specialist. Input from
pilots showed the two scenarios to beroughly equivalent, which surprised
Johnson. “We thought that holding
on to the original aircraft and hand-
ing of the rest, you would have more
situational awareness and that would
be better,” he says. “To the extent we
found anything, we found that when
they (went into dedicated mode with
one aircraft), they had a hard time for-
getting about the other 11, especially if
there was an impending task.”
In future studies, NASA is planning
to investigate some type of physiologi-
cal monitoring of the captain, along
with the video feed already installed
for SPO-3. Ground operators found
the video, showing the captain’s seat
and the control panel in dedicated sup-
port mode, to be “somewhat useful” for
inferring the pilot’s actions. A similar
video feed on the super dispatcher
position was “totally useless,” as that
operator uses a mouse.
Monitoring for the captain would in-
clude alerting for non-responsiveness;
however, the threshold for the ground
controllers taking over the aircraft
when not in dedicated mode would be
necessarily high, as the captain remains
in charge of the safety of the flight in the
SPO conops. “Is he sleeping, is he dead,
or has he gone into oxygen deprivation
and he thinks he’s fine and blue birds
are flying around the cockpit?” says
Johnson. “The person on the ground, if
he sees these monitors going of, he can
hook in and say, how are you doing?” cthe EU—through the Sesar Joint
Undertaking—picking up the tab
for the ground portion of the work.
Implementing the procedures,
which include Required Navigation
Performance (RNP) approaches
and arrivals, as well as RNP-to-ILS
(instrument landing system) transi-
tions, will be the air navigation ser-
vice providers for the four countries, with Airbus ProSky
coordinating the implementation and training the air trafc
controllers.
RNP-to-ILS transitions are an ongoing research area in
terms of developing processes to smooth the connection
between satellite-based RNP procedures that are based on
barometric pressure for altitudes (pressure, hence instru-
ment altitude, varies with temperature) and the ILS, which
has a geometric beam that is indiferent to temperature. The
goal is to implement a single procedure that handles all air-
craft, minimizing work for controllers.
Of particular interest with the RISE program is eliminat-
ing ground-based non-precision instrument approaches that
terminate in a “circle-to-land” state that requires crews to
then establish a landing pattern dif-
ferent from the approach. An RNP
arrival, in contrast, uses satellite-
based guidance to place the aircraft
directly in front of the runway at a
lower altitude at the termination of
the approach, while reducing track
miles, altitude changes and avoiding
noise-sensitive areas along the way.
A key part of the project is to ofer airlines the ability to see
the benefits of RNP equipage before paying for the necessary
avionics upgrade, which in Airbus aircraft involves activat-
ing software already onboard. “It’s a chicken-and-egg story
about equipage—ANSPs would not implement PBN because
the critical mass airline participation is not met, and vice-ver-
sa with airlines not equipping because there are not enough
aircraft in system to make it worthwhile,” says Paul-Franck
Bijou, Airbus ProSky’s chief executive ofcer. “It’s a vicious
circle that slows the system down.” Bijou says airlines accept-
ing the package deal will pay a per-aircraft fee at the end of
the calendar year. During the trials, the company will collect
feedback from flight crews and controllers on the flyability,
safety, workload, emissions and fuel-consumption reductions.“This is a way to make
the wake issue on a
single runway go
away completely”