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SUMMARY

This study was undertaken for the purpose of making a comprehensive survey of present procedures for evaluating the airline pilot and identifying the critical requirements of his job. The principal objectives of the study were to obtain information concerning the critical requirements of the airline pilot's job, the methods of selecting airline pilots, the methods of evaluating airline pilots, the critical situations in airline flying and their causes, and pilot fatigue.

Various sources of information were utilized in making this survey. These included interviews with airline pilots, Civil Aeronautics Administration Inspectors and airline company check-pilots. Information was also obtained from the Civil Aeronautics Board records of airline accidents, and from a study of airline company personnel files.

In arriving at the critical requirements of the job of airline pilot, content analyses were made of all critical incidents reported by pilots, inspectors and check-pilots in the interviews and of the airline accidents obtained from the Civil Aeronautics Board records. These analyses produced 787 examples of pilot behaviors, which were grouped into 21 different job components. The most critical component of the pilot's job, as determined from all sources, is that involving the skills of establishing and maintaining a proper angle of glide, rate of descent and speed of glide on the approach. Failure to perform this part of the job adequately was found to result in three times as many accidents as does failure to perform any other part of the job. The next most critical component is that involving the operation of controls and switches. Errors in this component contribute to near-accidents with a high frequency. Navigating and orienting proved to be the third most critical component of the pilot's job.

In order to determine if airline company selection requirements for pilot applicants were critical requirements, matched groups of applicants who were later eliminated and applicants who successfully completed training were compared as to age, education and flying hours at time of employment, as to scores on standardized intelligence and personality tests and as to performance in ground and flying training. Data from this comparison suggest that present airline company selection requirements are not critical requirements, inasmuch as in general they do not predict later success or failure during training. Achievement on flight checks, however, does predict later success or failure.

Other evidence as to the components of the pilot's job which are critical was obtained from content analyses of the opinions of Civil Aeronautics Administration Inspectors and company check pilots and from an analysis of unfavorable comments made by captains on the flight performance of the eliminated group of trainees. There is some evidence that Civil Aeronautics Administration Inspectors, check-pilots and captains put greater emphasis upon components of the job which seldom contribute to critical situations actually experienced by airline pilots.