FAA Office of Aerospace Medicine
Civil Aerospace Medical Institute

Aerospace Medicine Technical Reports
Report No: DOT/FAA/AM-10/1

Title and Subtitle: Effects of Video Weather Training Products, Web-Based Preflight Weather Briefing, and Local vs. Non-Local Pilots on General Aviation Pilot Weather Knowledge and Flight Behavior, Phase I

Report Date: January 2010

Authors: Knecht WR, Ball J, Lenz M

Abstract: This research has two main phases. Phase 1 investigated three major questions:

1. Do video weather training products significantly affect general aviation (GA) pilot weather knowledge and flight behavior in marginal meteorological conditions?
2. How are modern Web-based weather products used during GA preflight briefing?
3. Do local Oklahoma GA pilots differ appreciably from other pilots in either weather knowledge or weather-related flight behavior?

Fifty GA pilots took a general weather knowledge pre-test, followed by exposure to either one of two weather training videos (the Experimental groups) or to a video having nothing to do with weather (the Control group). They next took a post-test to measure knowledge gain induced by the training product. Finally, they planned for, and flew, a simulated flight mission through marginal weather from Amarillo, TX, to Albuquerque, NM.

Question 1: Few highly significant, direct effects were found for the two 90-minute video weather training products all by themselves. Follow-up multivariate modeling implied that a combination of higher pilot age, receiving either weather training product, and takeoff hesitancy could significantly, correctly predict 86.7% of diversions from deteriorating weather and 77.8% of full flight completions. However, we must conservatively conclude that weather knowledge and GA weather flying behavior are complex and unlikely to be profoundly changed by a single, brief training product. Phase 2 will address this issue.

Question 2: The data-collecting emulation of www.aviationweather.gov suggested that mere time spent on preflight briefing was not a good predictor of either quality of preflight briefing or subsequent flight safety. Nonetheless, these data are just an opening look at what should eventually be a far more intensive study of modern weather briefing and its relation to flight safety.

Question 3: No important differences were seen between local and non-local pilots. These findings imply that CAMI studies are likely to be generalizable to the national population of U.S. GA pilots.

Key Words: Weather, Training, Pre-Flight Briefing, Weather Knowledge, Flight Behavior

No. of Pages: 39