The Curtis Papers: Canadian Aerospace and Joint Studies Vol.1

191 Pages·2013·1.47 MB·English

THE CURTIS PAPERS
CAnAdIAn AERoSPACE And JoInT STUdIES
Vol. 1 • Book 1: 2009 | 2010
Select Masters in Defence Studies Papers
ISSN Number: 2291-2681
This publication is available online at Trenton.mil.ca/lodger/CFAWC/eLibrary/eLibrary_e.asp
on the intranet or at www.rcaf-arc.forces.gc.ca/cfawc/eLibrary/eLibrary_e.asp on the Internet.
Design and editing by Canadian Forces Aerospace Warfare Centre Production Section.
This publication was prepared for the Canadian Department of National Defence but the views
expressed in it are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the policy or the
opinion of any agency, including the Government of Canada and the Canadian Department of
National Defence.
© Her Majesty the Queen as represented by the Minister of National Defence, 2013
Canadian aerospaCe and Joint studies the Curtis papers
Vol. 1 • Book 1: 2009 | 2010 – Select Masters in Defence Studies Papers
Introduction
The Curtis Papers are named in honour of Air Marshal Wilfred Austin “Wilf” Curtis, Officer of
the Order of Canada (OC), Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB), Commander of the Order
of the British Empire (CBE), Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) and Bar, Efficiency Decoration
(ED) and Canadian Forces Decoration (CD). Curtis was the Chief of the Air Staff of the Royal
Canadian Air Force (RCAF) from 1947 until 1953 and was a strong supporter of the Canadian
Forces College (CFC) in its early years as the RCAF Staff College. He firmly believed in the need
for a well-trained and educated officer corps as a prerequisite for an efficient, effective and innovative
military force.
The publication of The Curtis Papers supports the ongoing mandate of the Canadian Forces
Aerospace Warfare Centre (CFAWC) to encourage the study of aerospace subjects of interest to
both the RCAF and the joint defence community. One of the primary methods to achieve this goal
is to publish, or to cause to have published, aerospace and joint material of a high professional and
academic quality. The CFC, through its Master of Defence Studies (MDS) programme, produces
on an annual basis a number of papers that meet these criteria. The papers contained herein were
selected from amongst a multitude of fine papers produced by the students of the Joint Command
and Staff Programme.
The Curtis Papers will be distributed to various Canadian and allied locations to serve as a
resource for ongoing professional development and academic education. In this manner, they will
increase aerospace awareness amongst broader civilian and military communities, while at the same
time emphasizing the need for a joint perspective within aerospace forces.
Abbreviations
CFC Canadian Forces College
RCAF Royal Canadian Air Force
These papers were written by students attending the Canadian Forces College in fulfilment
of one of the requirements of their course of studies. The papers are scholastic documents, and
thus contain facts and opinions, which the authors alone considered appropriate and correct for
the subjects. They do not necessarily reflect the policy or the opinion of any agency, including the
Government of Canada and the Canadian Department of National Defence.
Introduction iii
The CurTis PaPers Canadian aerosPaCe and JoinT sTudies

Vol. 1 • Book 1: 2009 | 2010 – Select Masters in Defence Studies Papers
Table of contents
Chapter 1 ......................................................................................................................................1
Line Operational Simulation: Towards Optimizing Human Performance
in the Canadian Air Force
By Lieutenant-Colonel Colin R. Keiver
Chapter 2 .......................................................................................................................................41
Canadian Special Operations Aviation: A Strategically Relevant Force
By Major Richard Morris
Chapter 3 .......................................................................................................................................73
Protection of Canadian Space-Based Assets: A Policy Void
By Major Walter S. F. Norquay
Chapter 4 ....................................................................................................................................110
Motion: Is There A Requirement in Large Fixed-Wing Aviation Simulators?
By Major Jason Stark
Chapter 5 .....................................................................................................................................147
Canada’s Air Force Kinetic Capability for the 21st Century: What Is Needed?
By Major Paul J. Doyle
iv Table of contents
Canadian aerospaCe and Joint studies the Curtis papers
Vol. 1 • Book 1: 2009 | 2010 – Select Masters in Defence Studies Papers
Chapter 1 –
Line Operational Simulation: Towards Optimizing
Human Performance in the Canadian Air Force
Lieutenant-Colonel Colin R. Keiver
Abstract
The Canadian Air Force has begun a modernization programme that is unprecedented in its
history. The findings and conclusions in this paper, as they relate to the synthetic environment and
the optimization of human performance, are a means to ensure the Air Force is able to fully exploit
the potential of not only the systems it possesses or will possess in the future but also the potential of
its personnel. This paper proposes a road map to operational success and safety that fully exploits the
synthetic environment to build upon what has always been one of the fundamental strengths of the
Air Force—its people. To achieve these goals, it recommends the creation of behavioural performance
markers within the Air Force that are taught and evaluated to the same level as technical skills. Once
created, these skills are best taught in the synthetic environment in what the aviation industry refers
to as line operational simulation (LOS).
While there are no quick answers to the human factors issues that the Air Force is wrestling
with, this paper concludes that solving them is not difficult. It will take deliberate effort and
resources. Once that effort is begun, and a common language of aviation human factors is established
across the Air Force, other areas such as human performance in military aviation (HPMA) and
the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) used by flight safety will also
begin to deliver promised results that have yet to be achieved. There is significant potential to adopt
other industry solutions, such as line operations safety audits (LOSA), once human factors are fully
integrated into Air Force training and operations. Implementing LOS and maximizing the use of
the synthetic environment across all fleets within the Canadian Air Force is a critical first step in
that transformation.
Chapter 1 – Line Operational Simulation: Towards Optimizing Human Performance in the Canadian Air Force 1
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Vol. 1 • Book 1: 2009 | 2010 – Select Masters in Defence Studies Papers
Table of contents
Abstract ......................................................................................................................................1
List of tables ...............................................................................................................................3
1. Introduction ...........................................................................................................................4
2. Human factors in aviation .....................................................................................................6
Introduction .............................................................................................................................6
Human factors defined .............................................................................................................6
The birth of aviation human factors ..................................................................................6
The role of human factors in aviation ................................................................................7
The historical context ...............................................................................................................7
The modern context ..................................................................................................................8
Modern aviation incidents and occurrences ......................................................................9
The nature of human factors incidents and occurrences ....................................................9
The introduction of line operational simulation (LOS) ...........................................................11
The delivery of LOS .........................................................................................................11
LOS today ........................................................................................................................12
The basic elements of LOS ...............................................................................................13
The critical role of the instructors and evaluators .............................................................14
The effectiveness and benefits of LOS ..............................................................................14
Summary ...............................................................................................................................15
3. The Canadian Air Force ........................................................................................................16
Introduction ..........................................................................................................................16
Desired end state ...................................................................................................................16
The Canadian Air Force today ..........................................................................................17
The Automation Policy and Planning Development Project ............................................17
Simulation in the Air Force ..............................................................................................17
Human factors in the Air Force ............................................................................................19
The Flight Safety system ..................................................................................................20
Air Force instructors and evaluators ......................................................................................21
Flight instructor standards ...............................................................................................22
The reasons for the shortcomings ..........................................................................................23
The Air Force of tomorrow ...................................................................................................23
Summary ...............................................................................................................................24
4. Solving human factors with LOS .........................................................................................24
Introduction ..........................................................................................................................24
Behavioural markers ..............................................................................................................25
FAA behavioural markers .................................................................................................26
European behavioural markers .........................................................................................26
Behavioural markers used in the APPD Project ...............................................................27
The development of behavioural markers in the CF .........................................................28
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Canadian aerospaCe and Joint studies the Curtis papers
Vol. 1 • Book 1: 2009 | 2010 – Select Masters in Defence Studies Papers
The criticality of the instructor ..............................................................................................29
Instructors as facilitators ...................................................................................................29
Rater reliability .................................................................................................................31
Simulator scenario design .....................................................................................................32
Scenario design process ....................................................................................................32
The event set .....................................................................................................................33
Optimizing LOS effectiveness ..............................................................................................33
Increase the length of the event set ..................................................................................34
Create a user-friendly LOS evaluation form ....................................................................35
Document all skill ratings ................................................................................................35
The conduct of LOS .............................................................................................................35
Scenario validation and update .............................................................................................36
Additional benefits of a LOS programme for the Air Force .................................................37
Summary ...............................................................................................................................37
5. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................38
Abbreviations ...........................................................................................................................40
List of tables
Table 1. Type of emergency and how it was managed ...........................................................10
Table 2. Personnel cause factor attribution in CF ..................................................................20
Table 3. Air occurrence causal factors ....................................................................................21
Table 4. Ground occurrence causal factors .............................................................................21
Chapter 1 – Line Operational Simulation: Towards Optimizing Human Performance in the Canadian Air Force 3
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Vol. 1 • Book 1: 2009 | 2010 – Select Masters in Defence Studies Papers
1. Introduction
The quality of the box matters little.
Success depends upon the man who sits in it.1
Manfred von Richthofen
The Red Baron
In the latter part of the 20th century, the introduction of simulators to aviation marked a dramatic
evolution in the way the aviation community develops human potential. No longer restricted to
conducting training with an actual aircraft, simulators have allowed the industry to teach and practice
sequences and events considered too dangerous in a real aircraft while replicating, to a high level of
fidelity, the actual operating environment. In modern aviation training systems, it is not uncommon
for someone to achieve an initial qualification, and then maintain that qualification, without ever
touching an actual aircraft except during the conduct of operations. While originally oriented
towards training aircrew, the use of simulation has expanded to include all personnel involved in
aviation. This includes both maintainers and air traffic controllers.
This movement towards the use of the synthetic environment to achieve training objectives has
been mirrored within Canada’s Air Force. It began with the introduction of the first Link trainers
during the Second World War and continues to this day with highly capable simulators found
in programmes like the Maritime Helicopter Project (MHP) and the Airlift Capability Project -
Tactical (ACP-T), more commonly referred to as the C130J project. These projects will deliver more
than modern aircraft to the inventory; they will also field numerous sophisticated training devices
heavily reliant on simulation to achieve training objectives for both aircrew and maintainers. Today, most
Canadian Forces (CF) aircraft fleets possess, or have access to, synthetic training devices used for the
training and qualification of personnel within those fleets. In an effort to increase human performance,
the Canadian Forces has expended significant resources on the acquisition of synthetic training devices.
The technological development that has been put into the aviation synthetic training environment
has been significant—but, does it deliver corresponding increases in human performance? Research
has shown that without significant investment in other critical areas, with a focus on behavioural and
learning objectives, simply procuring the device will not achieve the desired results. As articulated
by Eduardo Salas, Clint A. Bowers and Liza Rhodenizer, how a simulator is used is actually more
important in the attainment of training objectives than the specific training technologies themselves.2
Simply put, a simulator or a full suite of synthetic training devices is not a training programme. The
fundamental issue then becomes how best to design the training so as to take full advantage of what
the synthetic environment has to offer. Achieving optimization of human performance through the
synthetic environment mandates the development of not only the devices but also the means by
which they are employed, based on a solid understanding of the behavioural objectives to be achieved.
This study will demonstrate that the adoption of line operational simulation concepts, similar to
those developed and implemented by the civilian aviation industry, will significantly contribute to an
increase in human performance in the Canadian Air Force and allow it to fully exploit the potential
of the synthetic environment. To do so, it will examine the following areas of human factors and
simulation within industry and the Canadian Air Force:
1. Manfred von Richthofen, The Red Fighter Pilot, trans. J. Ellis Barker (London, UK, 1918), Chapter 12, http://www.richthofen.com/
(accessed July 3, 2012). Originally published as Der Rote Kampflieger (1917).
2. Eduardo Salas, Clint A. Bowers, and Lori Rhodenizer, “It Is Not How Much You Have but How You Use It: Toward a Rational Use of
Simulation to Support Aviation Training,” International Journal of Aviation Psychology 8, no. 3 (1998): 197.
4 Chapter 1 – Line Operational Simulation: Towards Optimizing Human Performance in the Canadian Air Force