Ken Goodrich, Stacking the Flight Deck for Safety

Dean Sigler Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

As we head toward this year’s Electric Aircraft Symposium, we look back again at last year’s outstanding array of speakers and presentations. Ken Goodrich, a senior research engineer for the Dynamic Systems and Controls Branch at NASA Langley Research Center, for the last several decades has been intent on creating improved human interfaces for airplane flight decks.  His presentation at EAS V last April was based on long-term research (and now available in the CAFE library) and took an approach that challenged the conventional notions of responsibility. What if we were to share responsibility for our safety and that of our passengers with the airplane?  What if we were to give over responsibility entirely to the craft itself?  How do we interface with our aerial vehicle to ensure our safe passage and that of other aircraft around us? Starting with the training most of us take in learning to fly, we are taught stick and rudder skills, procedures and rules, according …