Applying a Common Conceptual Model Approach to Vertical Navigation Automation

The increased levels of automation in current generation aircraft have lead to a new set of human factors related concerns. This set of problems is suspect in a large number of incidents. These include a crash caused by autopilot disconnect confusion in an A300 at Nagoya, incorrect mode selection in an A320 at Strausbourg, overspeed problems with the B757 and several others. Billings has synopses of many of the incidents in the last two decades. These problems have raised the efforts of the design and human factors communities and, more recently, were the focus of the FAA Task Force Report on Interfaces Between Flightcrews and Modern Flight Deck Systems.