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
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
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