All posts tagged: pilots

Hide, find water: Former pilots detail how to survive being shot down

Hide, find water: Former pilots detail how to survive being shot down

Published by Sam Flores

As American forces race against time and Iran’s military to locate an aviator reportedly shot down Friday, a former Air Force pilot and a rescuer told AFP what it takes to hide, survive and extract someone behind enemy lines. Read moreIran, US race to recover missing crew member of crashed American fighter jet “You’re like, ‘Oh my God, I was in a fighter jet two minutes ago, flying 500 miles an hour, and a missile just exploded, literally 15 feet from your head,’” said retired brigadier general Houston Cantwell, who is now at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. That said, a pilot’s training — known as survival, evasion, resistance and escape (SERE) — would likely kick in before he or she parachutes to the ground. “Your best view of where you may want to go or where you may want to avoid is while you’re coming down in your parachute,” Cantwell said. Cantwell logged 400 hours of combat flight experience, including missions over Iraq and Afghanistan. Parachuting to the ground risks foot, ankle, and …

The Forgotten Female Pilots of World War II

The Forgotten Female Pilots of World War II

Published by Sam Flores

Recently, I stood in an airfield in Sweetwater, Texas, and looked up. I was wondering what it would have been like to take off from there in a small plane, flying into the dust of West Texas and the chaos of World War II, as my grandmother had. The land around me had the palette of a well-used watercolor set and the topography of a paper towel: gray and brown, flat forever. It is dry all year round, except when it suddenly pours. The wide, featureless landscape makes for big, blustery winds and difficult orientation. Also, it is famous for its rattlesnakes. During World War II, Sweetwater’s Avenger Field was the primary home of a program that trained women to fly military planes. They were called Women Airforce Service Pilots—WASPs—and they were the solution to a high-stakes problem: The war needed pilots, and men were dying quickly. From 1942 to 1944, these women volunteers engaged in just about every aspect of military flight operations except combat—ferrying aircraft, testing planes, transporting cargo, training new pilots—so that …

This Legendary 1940s Pilot’s Watch Is Back and Ready to Soar Again

This Legendary 1940s Pilot’s Watch Is Back and Ready to Soar Again

Published by Jenni Sidey

The Benrus Sky Chief used to be among the world’s most popular chronographs, but don’t be surprised if you’ve never heard of it. It flew the friendly skies in the golden era of commercial air travel and now, thanks to a faithfully recreated new edition, it’s ready to make its final descent onto your wrist. The story of its resurrection reveals the story of one of America’s greatest forgotten watch brands. Founded in New York City in 1921, Benrus was one of the top three watch brands in the country during the mid-20th century, worn by John F. Kennedy, Steve McQueen, and Babe Ruth, before—like so many other storied brands—falling victim to the quartz crisis of the 1970s. After languishing for a few decades, Benrus returned in 2020, and its lineup of vintage-inspired tool watches based on the brand’s greatest hits of yesteryear has since grown slowly but steadily. The latest among them, the Benrus Sky Chief, might be their most covetable release yet. Courtesy of Benrus Benrus was founded by brothers Oscar, Ralph, and …

FAA Mandates Airlines To Affirm Merit Hiring For Pilots

FAA Mandates Airlines To Affirm Merit Hiring For Pilots

Published by Jenni Sidey

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times, The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is issuing a new mandatory rule that requires all commercial airlines in the country to formally commit to merit-based hiring for pilots, according to a Feb. 13 statement from the Department of Transportation (DOT). Under the new mandate, all U.S. carriers must certify that the practice of airlines hiring based on race and sex has ended or face a federal investigation. “When families board their aircraft, they should fly with confidence knowing the pilot behind the controls is the best of the best,” DOT Secretary Sean P. Duffy said. “The American people don’t care what their pilot looks like or their gender—they just care that they are [the] most qualified man or woman for the job.” DOT said that even though the FAA has raised performance standards while eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) based positions within the agency and terminating related contracts, “allegations of airlines hiring based on race and sex remain.” The action follows President Donald Trump’s executive order on …

Personality traits shape how pilots react to simulated in-flight crises

Personality traits shape how pilots react to simulated in-flight crises

Published by José Betancourt

A recent psychological analysis suggests that a pilot’s inherent personality traits may predict their stress levels during in-flight emergencies more accurately than their professional experience does. The findings indicate that pilots with a natural disposition toward anxiety experience heightened stress during simulated hazards, regardless of how many hours they have flown. This research was published in the journal Aviation Psychology and Applied Human Factors. Commercial aviation maintains an exceptional safety record, yet accidents involving a loss of control in-flight remain a primary concern for the industry. These catastrophic events often begin with an unexpected disruption, such as a sudden system failure or a severe weather event. When a pilot encounters such a threat, the immediate human reaction is often a physiological startle response. This reflex can be followed by a cognitive state known as surprise. Surprise occurs when there is a mismatch between what a pilot expects the aircraft to do and what is actually happening. This mental disconnect can impair a pilot’s ability to process information and execute the correct procedures. Airlines typically select …

Dutch air force reads pilots’ brainwaves to make training harder

Dutch air force reads pilots’ brainwaves to make training harder

Published by skeptic

Royal Netherlands Air Force pilots tested brain-reading technology in a simulator Alireza Boeini/Alamy Fighter pilots in training are having their brainwaves read by AI as they fly in virtual reality to measure how difficult they find tasks and ramp up the complexity if needed. Experiments show that trainee fighter pilots prefer this adaptive system to a rigid, pre-programmed alternative, but that it doesn’t necessarily improve their skills. Training pilots in simulators and virtual reality is cheaper and safer than real flights, but these teaching scenarios need to be adjusted in real time so tasks sit in the sweet spot between comfort and overload. Evy van Weelden at the Royal Netherlands Aerospace Centre, Amsterdam, and her colleagues used a brain-computer interface to read student pilots’ brainwaves via electrodes attached to the scalp. An AI model analysed that data to determine how difficult the pilots were finding the task. “We are continuously working on improving [pilot] training, and what that looks like can be very different,” says van Weelden. “If you’re not in the field, it sounds …

This New Pan-Am Pilot’s Watch Wants to Party Like It’s 1959

This New Pan-Am Pilot’s Watch Wants to Party Like It’s 1959

Published by Jenni Sidey

​After the world was officially divided into timezones at a conference in Washington DC in 1884, watchmakers quickly developed pocket watches capable of displaying the time around the world. It would be almost 70 years, however, before the GMT came along. Specifically, it was Pan-Am, which operated the first transatlantic jet-powered passenger services, that commissioned Rolex to come up with a watch for its pilots to use as they criss-crossed the globe. “Jet lag” was a newly-discovered and little-understood phenomenon, and it was rather charmingly supposed that a watch capable of displaying two time zones at once might help trick the pilots’ circadian rhythms into ignoring the effects of high-speed travel. That proved beyond the powers of even Switzerland’s most famous watchmaker, but the red-and-blue split for night and day passed into horological design history and remains the go-to motif for GMTs the world over. ​To date, at least four watch brands have partnered with Pan-Am. Breitling produced a Pan-Am Navitimer in 2019, as part of a tribute to significant airlines, and the affordable independent …

New study reveals how gaze behavior differs between pilots in a two-person crew

New study reveals how gaze behavior differs between pilots in a two-person crew

Published by José Betancourt

New research utilizing eye-tracking technology has demonstrated the ability to accurately distinguish between the roles of a pilot flying and a pilot monitoring based solely on gaze behavior. These findings indicate that visual scanning patterns are reliable indicators of task engagement and team dynamics in a cockpit environment. The study, which suggests potential advancements for adaptive automation systems, was published in the journal Aviation Psychology and Applied Human Factors. Sophie-Marie Stasch, Yannik Hilla, and Wolfgang Mack from the University of the Bundeswehr Munich and the University of Zurich conducted this investigation. The researchers sought to address a significant gap in aviation safety regarding how flight crews manage multitasking. Commercial and military flights often require two pilots to coordinate complex duties, yet most research on pilot workload focuses on single operators. Flight manuals typically prescribe a structured division of labor where tasks are handled sequentially. Real-world operations often force crews to engage in concurrent multitasking due to unexpected events or weather changes. This discrepancy can lead to varying levels of cognitive load that are difficult for …

Going beyond pilots with composable and sovereign AI

Going beyond pilots with composable and sovereign AI

Published by skeptic

The concept to production reality AI pilots almost always work, and that’s the problem. Proofs of concept (PoCs) are meant to validate feasibility, surface use cases, and build confidence for larger investments. But they thrive in conditions that rarely resemble the realities of production. Source: Compiled by MIT Technology Review Insights with data from Informatica, CDO Insights 2025 report, 2026 “PoCs live inside a safe bubble” observes Cristopher Kuehl, chief data officer at Continent 8 Technologies. Data is carefully curated, integrations are few, and the work is often handled by the most senior and motivated teams. The result, according to Gerry Murray, research director at IDC, is not so much pilot failure as structural mis-design: Many AI initiatives are effectively “set up for failure from the start.” Download the article. Source link

Is turbulence really like Jello-O? Pilots weigh in.

Is turbulence really like Jello-O? Pilots weigh in.

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. A young woman pushes a balled-up piece of napkin into a cup of Jell-O, asking the viewer to imagine that it is an airplane, high in the air. “That is you flying through the sky,” she tells the camera. “There’s pressure from the bottom, pressure from the top, from the sides, pressure coming from everywhere.” She taps the top of the Jell-O, making the suspended napkin ball quiver. “This is what happens when there’s turbulence,” she says. “You feel the plane shaking, but [it] is not just going to fall down.” The video is by Australian TikToker Anna Paul. Just days after she uploaded it in June 2022, it had accumulated more than 15 million views and thousands of comments from people saying it had cured their fear of flying. Paul says she got the tip “from a real pilot.” But how accurate is the analogy? Is turbulence really like Jell-O? The origins of the Jell-O analogy The Jell-O …