fu·sion noun - the process or result of joining two or
more things together to form a single entity.
IN 1999, I WAS AN EMS PILOT FLYING A BRAND NEW SIKORSKY S76C+. I TRULY FELT PRIVILEGED TO HAVE AN ALL-GLASS COCKPIT, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF THE STANDBY AIRSPEED, ALTIMETER, AND ATTITUDE INDICATOR DIALS. WITH EFIS DISPLAYS SHOWING MY PRIMARY FLIGHT DATA, AND MULTI-FUNCTION DISPLAYS (MFDs) SHOWING AIRCRAFT PERFORMANCE DATA AND A MOVING MAP DISPLAY . . . WELL, I KIND OF FELT WE WERE ON THE “BLEEDING EDGE” OF TECHNOLOGY IN HELICOPTER AVIATION.
I will not lie; transitioning from traditional round fl ight instruments to all digital displays was not easy. considered
myself as someone
Although I who
embraced technology, years of scanning habits were very hard to break. This was especially true when it came to my brain interpreting airspeed and altitude. Seeing the pointers on a round gage seemed more intuitive than reading a vertical tape and digital readout. My transition was becoming an on-the-job experiment in human factors and ergonomics in the cockpit. After several months, I realized that I was still relying on the standby instruments, and not looking much at the data on the EFIS display. No matter how hard I tried, when the workload was high, the standby instruments were my go-to location when scanning for primary fl ight information.
I decided that I needed to do something to
force my adjustment
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to the new
technology, otherwise I was just creating more work for myself. If used properly, technology is supposed to increase our situational awareness and decrease our workload in the cockpit. So what did I do? I bought round instrument covers attached by rubber suction cups and temporarily covered the standby instruments. forced me to look at the EFIS display. Within a month I had re-programmed my scanning habits, and my brain gained the ability to interpret fl ight data quickly.
This
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