Abstract:

A reasonable cockpit hierarchy was considered conducive to improving the overall performance of flight crews. This study was aimed at investigating the impact of cockpit hierarchy on the SA of airline pilots. First, 30 airline pilots were recruited as participants. By introducing "risky" flight instructors as crew partners, different cockpit hierarchy conditions were established by integrating participants' flight experience, power distance orientation, and role assignment. Second, in a full flight simulator, a low-visibility approach task was performed once by each participant as both Pilot Monitoring (PM) and Pilot Flying (PF). Meanwhile, participants' situational awareness levels were measured through a subjective scale and objective eye-tracking data (fixation and visit indicators). The results show that flight experience has a significant main effect on SA. The interaction between role assignment and power distance orientation has a significant main effect on visit counts. The interaction between flight experience and power distance orientation has a significant main effect on fixation counts. The three-way interaction among flight experience, power distance orientation, and role assignment has a significant main effect on the percentage of fixation counts. Finally, the influence mechanism of hierarchy elements on pilots' situational awareness is revealed. Empirical evidence for optimizing the optimal crew composition under cockpit hierarchy is provided. When acting as PF, participants' fixation and visit mainly focus on the Primary Flight Display (PFD); when acting as PM, they mainly focus on the navigation display (ND), engine/warning display (E/WD) and outside of the window (OTW).

Key words: cockpit hierarchy, airline pilots, situational awareness(SA), role assignment, power distance orientation, eye movement