Comprehensive Literature: Military And Commercial Aircrew Fatigue (Essay Sample)

Comprehensive Literature Review
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Military and Commercial Aircrew Fatigue
Introduction
The long history of military and commercial aircrew fatigue has been a major cause of air flight congestion. Some of the causes of pilot fatigue include unplanned work hours, long schedules and inadequate sleep. In many cases, the aircrew members do not realize the risks attributed to long flights without adequate sleep. The operational demands that come from the high level of work load may reduce the available time for sleeping. This will in turn disrupt the stability of the crew attendant and impair their judgment and operational efficiency. Such factors may pose a threat to the safety of the air industry. In many cases, a person who is deprived of sleep usually move and react slowly. Fatigue and lack of sleep has been the major cause of air flight accidents. Various approaches have been developed to come up with interactive methods of dealing with pilot fatigue. The literature articles used have come up with various approaches that can be used to deal with the issue of fatigue in pilots. Other approaches seek to deal with the performance and safety of the plane in time operation. When the industry focuses on the safety and performance of the aircrew members fatigue and sleep deprivation will not be an issue. Addressing the safety levels will lead to an overall safety of the air flight operation. In the 1930s, the aviation industry started limiting the flight time so as to ensure that the pilot had enough sleep. Since then there have been many changes in the scheduling provision and time management for all pilots and aircrew members. The current field of knowledge is working on incorporating the role of psychology in fatigue so as to come up with better solutions to aircrew fatigue.
The Air crew Regulatory Authority has set 8 hours as the mandatory rest time. The rest time is defined as the period an air crew is free from active duties in or off the air plane. In many cases, air flight companies usually give their staff a maximum of 10 hours as the rest time. The period include the time spent travelling to and from the point of rest. In most scenarios, the aircrew members fail to meet the 8 hour mandatory sleep time. When reporting back to work, they are either fatigued or under-slept. Such accumulated sleep deprivations may lead to health related problems which may in turn lead to air flight accidents.
Limitations
1 Night Schedule operations
As the number of the night shift flight increases, the operational efficiency of the aircrew continues to drop. The literature article shows how night fatigue hinder effectiveness of the aircrew. As the work load demand increases at night, the crew will be worn out and therefore react slowly to emergencies. In the event of an accident, the fatality may be high due to slow movement and reaction of the crew. Night time fatigue hampers the pilot’s ability to coordinate the crew, communication and the glass cock pit. Furthermore, a fatigued pilot has problems in navigating.
2 Reduced efficiency in pilot performance
The article explores on the various ways that fatigue affects the pilot’s performance. Some of the areas affected include alertness, reaction time, cognitive processing and decision making. In the discussion, the article has shown the various dimension of fatigue and how each affects performance.
3 Duty Days
The literature article shows how fatigue and sleep deprivation affects more the night pilots than the day time crew. Other areas affected most include early morning flights and the late afternoon take offs.
Countermeasures
After exploring on the different dimensions that lead to fatigue and sleep deprivations, the literature articles have come up with some various countermeasures to deal with the problem. Some of the countermeasures include:
* Uninterrupted sleep before any flight - pilots and any other air crew member are to establish an 8 hour uninterrupted sleep pattern before a flight. This culture should be practiced daily to ensure that they are always refreshed.
* Inflight Napping- the article show how pilots utilize in-flight napping in case of long flights. This helps in countering fatigues and increasing the pilot’s performance efficiency.
Safety Management System
The major concern of the research is to ensure that the passengers and other air c...