Editor's Preface to the Special Issue on Pilot Selection

Abstract

In 1996, the International Journal of Aviation Psychology (IJAP) published its first special issue on pilot selection. Jefferson Koonce was the editor of this issue, which included six articles. Two of the six articles were research papers concerned with military pilot selection; two, with civilian selection. The fifth paper, by Neil Johnston (Johnston, 1996), expressed concerns about the psychological testing proposed by the European Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA). I was the author of the final article (Damos, 1996), which was a critique of the then-current state of pilot selection. In the intervening 18 years the aviation industry has undergone many changes, especially in civil operational flying. Some of these changes affected how pilots conduct operational flights. Others affected pilot recruitment and training. The purpose of this special issue is to address the effects of some of these changes on the pilot selection process. Five articles make up this issue. Each is followed by two commentaries. Because of page limitations, all five articles with their commentaries could not be published in one issue. Consequently, the first three articles (Hoermann & Goerke; Rose et al.; and King) with their commentaries are published in this issue of IJAP. The final two articles (Turner; Weissmuller & Damos) with commentaries will appear in the next issue. Perhaps three of the most noticeable changes in civil aviation from a human factors perspective have been the gradual shift from three-person to two-person crews, the continual increase in cockpit automation, and the widespread adoption and integration of crew resource management (CRM) into pilot training and operational procedures. All three of these changes have the potential to affect the pilot selection process by altering the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other traits (KSAOs) that should be assessed. In my 1996 article, I suggested that aviation psychologists conduct job analyses for two-crew, glass cockpit aircraft and identify any skills or abilities required by glass aircraft that were not required by traditional aircraft. In 2004, Goeters, Maschke, and Eisfeldt (2004) conducted a major study using the Fleishman Job Analysis Survey (F–JAS; Fleishman, 1992) to identify the KSAOs needed for a successful career as a commercial airline pilot. Nine scales developed at the Deutsche Forschungsanstalt fur Luftund Raumfahrt (DLR) Aviation and Space Psychology were added to Fleishman’s attributes to assess the relevance of interpersonal skills. Pilots flying two types of aircraft were included as participants: those flying hybrid cockpits (less automated) and those flying glass cockpits (more automated). Each participant gave two sets of ratings: one for the relevance