Cognitive aging and flight performances in general aviation pilots

ABSTRACT

Unlike professional pilots who are limited by the FAA's age rule, no age limit is defined in general aviation. Our overall goal was to examine how age-related cognitive decline impacts piloting performance and weather-related decision-making. This study relied on three components: cognitive assessment (in particular executive functioning), pilot characteristics (age and flight experience), and flight performance. The results suggest that in comparison to chronological age, cognitive assessment is a better criterion to predict the flight performance, in particular because of the inter-individual variability of aging impact on cognitive abilities and the beneficial effect of flight experience.

Keywords:

• Aging
• Executive functions
• Aviation
• Human factors
• Decision making

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Dr Jonathan Levy for his comments and guidance in the write-up of this manuscript. We would also like to express our sincere gratitude to the Lasbordes Airfield ISAE pilots who volunteered their time to complete this research. The study was supported by a ‘Gis Longévité’ grant, and the Midi-Pyrenees Regional Council grants 03012000 and 05006110.

Notes

¹French Accident Investigation Bureau.

²National Transportation Safety Board: independent U.S. federal government agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation.

³Crosswind (in knots) = effective wind (in knots) * sin (angle between runway and wind direction). Moreover, pilots have mnemonic methods to simplify this calculation.