Skip to main content

Risk Management and ADM

    Aeronautical Decision Making (ADM) and risk management are important skills in both manned and unmanned aviation.  ADM looks at aviation from multiple angles.  The flight does not just occur from takeoff until landing.  It actually involves a much more thorough investigation.  Before the flight occurs every potential hazard must be evaluated for the flight.  This occurs through a risk management process.  Using deliberate operational risk management (ORM), a pilot will review every potential hazard for the flight.  This will include, but is not limited to, personal factors, environmentals, and mission risks.  After identifying all potential hazards and assessing the risk, the pilot must determine the best way to reduce the risk.
    Two large risks that stand out to me for ADM and risk management are pilots crew rest/day scheduling and the utilizing sensors instead of see and avoid.  Since the pilot is always on the ground, there may be a perception that the job is less dangerous.  That is not true.  Potentially losing a drone over a populated area could have catastrophic results.  It is important to treat the job as seriously as strapping into an aircraft.  Having to rely solely on sensors is still a challenging situation.  Since a person can not use their own visual cues in the cockpit, they must react based on the sensors and visuals that the unmanned aerial system is seeing.
    Pilots operating under the FAA CFR 14 Part 107 have the disadvantage of regulations not being entirely understood from local ordinance to local ordinance.  This can provide additional stress to commercial operators.  If the regulations were created more standardly it would be easier for pilots to not have to worry about ambiguity.  Having a better understanding of allowed procedures would increase the ability for pilots to operate more freely.
References
Federal Aviation Administration. (2009). Risk management handbook.  Https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/media/faa-h-8083-2.pdf





  


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

UAS and Manned Aircraft Autonomy

There are multiple levels of automation developed and defined for UAS operations.  NASA created the NASA level of autonomy that consists of 8 different levels.  They each have an observe, orient, decide, and act decision making task associated with the situation (Elliot, J.L. & Stewart, B., 2011, p. 113).  The chart listed below shows each level of automation.   Figure 1: NASA Level of Autonomy (Elliot, J.L.  & Stewart, B., 2011, p. 113) Level 1 is the most human oriented level.  The human is able to gather and filter through all of the data.  Level 8 is the most computer-based system.  The computer gathers all information and does not even display that information to the human.  Currently, most technology operates between a 3 to a 5.  The computer is able to gather information and make decisions, but most systems still require a human in the loop to impact large situations.   The...
Post a Comment
Read more

Physiological Issues in UAS

            Physiological issues will affect all manned and unmanned pilots at some point during their careers.  Sometimes a pilot wakes up more fatigued than expected or with some type of head cold.  What makes pilots safe and professional is their ability to mitigate risk and determine if they are able to actually complete the flight or not.  UAS operators have to evaluate how they are feeling before every flight based on the IMSAFE procedure.  The IMSAFE procedure looks at illness, medication, stress, alcohol, fatigue, and emotion to determine if a pilot will be safe to fly the mission they are supposed to fly  (FAA, 2016, p. 49).  If they are not capable of completing the mission then they must not fly that day. Figure 1: OTC Medication Requirements (FAA, n.d.)               OTC medications can pose a threat to the illness an...
Post a Comment
Read more

UAS Mishaps and Accidents

 There are many different factors when evaluating someone for their ability to be a UAS operator. UAS operators are required to operate in dynamic environments almost every time they fly.  I personally have had the opportunity to fly small personal UAS in the past, and have noticed, even as a pilot, it can be quite challenging when you initially start learning.  This can often lead to crashes with objects or the ground.  In my experience, because I was working with a small UAS, I did not need to register it and could practice with no real training.  I eventually got the hang of the flight path, but it did take a couple of practices.   To actually be certified I believe it is important for a pilot to go through a multi-week course that covers a variety of topics.  These topics include aerodynamics, weather, and airspace.  Once the operator completes that course, they can then move on to actually learning to fly UAS.  Those fundamentals ar...
Post a Comment
Read more