Georgia Tech is seeking pilots to volunteer for a study examining how meteorological information displays affect pilot weather decision-making. Licensed pilots and currently enrolled student pilots who are at least 18 years of age and live in the US are eligible to participate.
As you know, adverse weather conditions in aviation can lead to delays, deviations, and even accidents. As a result, the Georgia Institute of Technology is conducting a study on how different weather display technology influences pilot decision-making.
As a participant in this study, you will be asked to complete an online demographic questionnaire regarding your flight experience, ratings, and other items. Following the demographic questionnaire, the participant pilots will be asked to evaluate various weather scenarios. The study will take roughly 1-hours to complete, and the participants will have to evaluate 30 weather situations. We hope that you will consider participating and assisting us in learning more about weather display technology. Participation will assist us in learning more about weather display technologies with the goal of improving aviation safety. The supported internet browsers are Chrome 4.0 or higher, and Firefox 4.0 or higher. In addition, JavaScript must be enabled. We recommend using a laptop or a desktop. If you work at a secure government facility, you may need to use a personal device due to security constraints.
If you would like to participate in this study, please go to the web address (URL) shown below:
https://tinyurl.com/yxgr2ock
For more information about this study, or to volunteer for this study, please contact:
Dr. Rick Thomas
Associate Professor
School of Psychology
Georgia Institute of Technology
rick.thomas@psych.gatech.edu
So, I thought this might be interesting. For me, I didn’t last through the third scenario.
#3 I’ve just flown through a severe storm and now I must decide if a left or right flight path will keep me 20 miles from the remaining storms using a NEXRAD display only? No way am I going to be anywhere close to this area cruising at 140KTS or 460KTS, even using onboard radar!
Those of us who have been flying in weather for a long time know that there are many unseen dangers even 20 miles from storms. At times 10 miles may be safe. Others, 20 miles may not be enough. It takes years of experience to develop the SA required to operate safely in the vicinity of severe weather using onboard radar. I would Never use NEXRAD no matter what the refresh rate, to deviate around severe weather I can’t see!
I am interested in what you hope to do with the data though…
Agree.
I quit the on the same scenario. Just didn’t make sense.
It would seem that the people that designed are not pilots. Or maybe do not have any experience or understanding of using a nexrad display. You fly around this stuff - you don’t pick your way through. If you did what their scenarios presented, you would probably die.
Pretty strange…
Odd, I did the same thing, for the same reasons. I noted an email address of the originator and sent him an email stating that I didn’t think any of the route options presented in the first three were “safe.” Agree that it looks like something designed without the input of an experienced pilot.
I completed the whole experiment just to help the researcher. But, these scenarios don’t reflect real life. If a storm with more than 50dZ reflection is on my time of departure in my flight path, I won’t even launch into it so flying through it is not a right question. I hope the research identifies the question and either starts another Randomized trial or considers such scenario as an aberration.