**8.3 Aviation Personnel Selection, Training and Proficiency:**

Flight crew issues

Cabin crew issues

Air traffic controller issues

Maintenance personnel issues

Selection

Philosophically, obtaining the right people for aviation jobs is not
different than obtaining the right people for other highly technical
occupations in which successful individuals need to have an acceptable
set of personal traits, many of which were discussed above. It is
vitally important that any attempt to select individuals into, or
exclude individuals from a particular type of job, be preceded by an
accurate *job task analysis* (JTA). The fact that a selection process is
necessary assumes that the job cannot be performed by everyone likely to
apply and that there will be more applicants than there are positions
available. The challenge then is to determine what screening processes
result in the selection of candidates who ultimately achieve success in
the

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job. This usually begins with the establishment of certain objective
criteria, such as physical requirements, attained education, previous
experience, and often one or more "psychological selection procedures."
These psychological procedures have three primary measurements to
establish:

Attainment -- what the applicant has done before and knows when
applying.

Aptitude -- assessment of the applicant's potential or latent capacity.

Personal qualities -- motivation, stability, dependability, etc.

These parameters may be assessed with objective or semi-objective test
batteries, however, more often the data relevant to these three
dimensions is sought through much more subjective means, as noted in the
following example.

When the need arises to perform selection of personnel for military,
commercial, and even private aviation operations, physicians will be
directly or indirectly involved. The classic example of this is the
Adaptability Rating for Military Aviation (ARMA), initially developed by
Major Raymond F. Longacre, in 1930. The ARMA has evolved continuously
over many decades, and while originally intended for military aircrew
selection, can be adapted for civilian use and can be modified to aid in
the selection of a broad range of other workers, such as law enforcement
and nuclear power plant operators.

By its nature the ARMA and similar survey instruments are more
subjective than objective. The ARMA as practiced early in World War II
was a list of about 40 specific questions administered rigidly to
prospective pilots. During the ensuing decades, no specific edition or
revision of the ARMA has ever been shown to be a valid and reproducible
assessment of an applicant's motivation to fly or likelihood of success
in aviation operations. However, the ARMA does allow the examiner to
assess the individual's thought processes leading to their apparent
desire to participate in flying activities. This is most often done
through a series of informal questions, almost a conversation, with the
applicant during the flying duty medical exam. The questions probe the
applicant's motivation for flying, previous aviation activities, their
perception of the dangers, and how they plan to overcome the
difficulties associated with an aviation career. Other indirect
questions about past achievement, how they react to supervision and
discipline, their feelings about individual and group (team) tasks, and
anger control may give indications relevant to aircrew selection. One
should always determine what the applicant will do if not selected --
occasionally an applicant has been known to reveal at this point that
they indeed have a "fallback" plan that is of more interest to them than
is flying, and that the application for aircrew duty is really to
satisfy someone else's desire (typically a father who has had or longed
for a successful aviation career). Finally, the examiner should pay
close attention to the way the applicant behaves and reacts during the
exam and interview process, i.e., nervous habits, eye contact, and so
on. In the end, the examiner must subjectively assess whether the
applicant exhibits an acceptable blend of many different attributes
which can enable success in aviation activities. Traditionally, these
have been thought to include motivation, independence, demonstrated
success in groups, intelligence, and ability to learn complex subjects,
abstract reasoning capability, energy, alertness, responsibility,
aptitude, and so forth. (Aptitude, aptitude testing, motivation, and
intelligence were discussed above)

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The usefulness of the ARMA and similar interviews depends upon the skill
of the examiner. Ultimately, many successful aviators have proven that
motivation and determination often make up for lack of innate ability.
This is particularly true with the growing trend in aviation automation,
which demands a much different set of innate abilities than has
traditionally been thought necessary. For many decades a significant
proportion of the civilian airline pilots came from the military, many
who spent their formative years, or even an entire military career (20
years) in high performance single seat aircraft. The single seat
aircraft almost always were fighter or high performance reconnaissance
aircraft, and typically pilots involved in those missions were at the
top of the pecking order of their military pilot communities --
conveying a subtle unspoken confirmation that one had become one of the
best of the best. These individuals had been specifically selected and
trained to achieve success, which was heavily dependent on
individualistic skills coupled to the notion that those skills
represented the pinnacle of piloting ability. The transition to civilian
airline flying was difficult for many such pilots, learning to
successfully participate and execute team-based skills was slow and
painful; often it involved learning a whole new "culture." For this, and
other reasons, the selection process for airline pilots now includes
significant effort to identify individuals who are likely to adapt and
function well in team situations while developing leadership qualities
compatible with team success.

**Training**

**"Training is the systematic modification of behavior through
instruction, practice, measurement, and** feedback. Its purpose is to
teach the trainee to perform tasks not previously possible or to a level
of skill or proficiency previously unattainable. Flight training
involves \[the\] use of resources that may include instructional
personnel, operational aircraft, simulators and other representations of
aircraft, printed and graphic media, classrooms and practice areas, and
a variety of other specialized aids and devices, depending on the tasks
to be trained."^4^

Effective training programs tend to have similar generic elements,
including:

Properly selected students.

A rational syllabus of instruction.

Knowledgeable, motivated training staff with adequate resources.

Appropriate methods of assessment and feedback.

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Creating an effective and efficient training syllabus requires a
deliberate process to thoroughly analyze the goals for training, the
best means to achieve those goals, appropriate methods to analyze the
outputs to assure trainees achieve the desired outcomes, and to
continuously improve the program. Although several steps in such an
analysis may be described separately, in reality they tend to overlap
significantly; many occur in parallel rather than linear sequence. The
primary steps / analyses performed for most training programs are as
follows:

Task analysis to determine the intellectual tasks and the behaviors
required to perform any associated psychomotor tasks.

Training objectives are linked to the task analysis. These are primarily
statements delineating expectations for the trainees following training.
This includes not only what the person is expected to do, but determines
the conditions in which it will be performed, the objective standard to
which it must be performed, and so on.

Training objectives must be detailed, specific, and precise in order to
properly focus the training process for trainees and trainers alike. It
is critical that all involved clearly understand both the *intent* and
the *content* of the training objectives.

Construction of the training program, including what method of
instruction is best suited for each training task / objective. Adequate
resources must be assured and maintained. Each step in training must be
properly sequenced and interfaced in accordance with terminal or outcome
objectives. Where appropriate, intermediate or enabling goals may be
integrated to assure overall success.

Precise methods and criteria for evaluation of individual trainees,
trainers, and program effectiveness must be created and implemented. The
outcomes from this evaluation process then serve as feedback to modify
the program. It is also wise to include subsequent measures of
individual job performance after the trainee has entered the job
mainstream, to assure the training program has produced the desired
behavior for successful job performance.

Throughout the training process, there are several principles of
learning that should be kept in mind by trainees, trainers, and system
managers. Examples of the learning principles include:

The trainee must learn for himself, no one can learn for him.

Each trainee learns at a different pace / rate from all other trainees.

Positively motivated trainees tend to learn faster -- to a point (see
previous discussion of workload), "negative motivation" is rarely
useful.

Assessment / feedback are critical to the learning process.

Active participation achieves a more thorough, longer lasting result
than passive learning; for many aviation training tasks, hands-on
practice and repetition is essential.

When a training objective requires team success, training should occur
as a team.

Real world aerospace operations occur in a very complex environment,
using very sophisticated hardware and software. Over the past 20+ years
there has been a trend toward expanded / extensive use of sophisticated,
high fidelity, motion-based simulators for both individual and
collective (team) training in aviation. Many advantages have been
documented and recognized by the training organization (e.g., airline
companies) and regulatory agencies (e.g., FAA). The level of
sophistication in simulation now available essentially replicates
virtually anything that can occur in an actual aircraft in aerospace
operations, with one major exception -- the simulator will not crash.
Currently available technology faithfully achieves full mission
simulation involving intact crews in Line Oriented Flight Training
(LOFT).