The Human Touch

 In your blog, you will provide a working definition of human factors in aviation, with justification and supporting references. Next, you will apply your definition to identify and describe challenges associated with a team-based activity that occurs in aviation. You may choose any activity that you wish (e.g. crew resource management, aircraft servicing, fleet servicing). The goal is to engage in a collaborative and constructive debate that promotes critical thought and reflection. 

As humanity continues to develop its industrial wings and ascend into the realms of space, localized flights such as aircraft continue to be improved on. A factor that many seem to forget is the Human Factor, and the large role it plays when dealing with issues. Taking the definitions of these words and applying them to aviation, we can come to a relatively decent definition

• Human - Pretty self-explanatory
• Factors - Something that is a part of something else; a subsection
• Aviation - Aircraft, Aeronautical, or anything involving some form of flight.

Putting these together, human factors in aviation refer to how we as humans play a role in anything involving the aircraft. We can justify it by comparing it to something like the Economy; with a factor of wages. Wages are a factor of the economy as they play a role in the development, definition, rating, and classification of the economy in question. Furthermore, as stated by the FAA, "The term human factors has grown increasingly popular as the commercial aviation industry realize that human error, rather than mechanical failure, underlies most aviation accidents and incidents" (Chapter 14 Human Factors - Faasafety.gov)

 https://www.faasafety.gov/files/gslac/courses/content/258/1097/AMT_Handbook_Addendum_Human_Factors.pdf. Notice how all of these in some way are negative and revolve around either human-caused or something a human, as opposed to machinery, could rate.

Now, using this picture, as well as other sources, we can discuss the challenges of this field, outside of this picture, human factors can conclude that some challenges are

• Hypoxia
• Hyperventilation
• Conditions such as
• Bipolar
• Diabetes
• Psychosis
• Epilepsy
• Middle Ear and Sinus issues
• Spatial illusions
• Haze
• Refraction
• Exhaustion; is different from fatigue.
• CO poisoning

All of these are issues that could either prohibit you from being in an aircraft position or cause the potential for danger. All must be looked for and dealt with accordingly to prevent any issues before they show up. However, for brevity, we will only focus on one... Fleet Servicing. As defined by Law Insider, Fleet Servicing is "... a development which administers a number of vehicles which deliver people, goods, or services, and where such vehicles are not available for sale or long term lease."

As we can see, while the ones I personally outlined do not apply, we can use the chart for pointing out issues. Mainly, issues in this line of the profession are management, communication, fatigue, boring work, and training just to name a few.

FAA. (2016, August 24). Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge. Retrieved February 12, 2022, from https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/phak/

FAA. (n.d.). Chapter 14 Human Factors - Faasafety.gov. Chapter 14 Human Factors. Retrieved February 12, 2022, from https://www.faasafety.gov/files/gslac/courses/content/258/1097/AMT_Handbook_Addendum_Human_Factors.pdf

Fleet services definition. Law Insider. (n.d.). Retrieved February 12, 2022, from https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/fleet-services