William J. Hughes Technical Center (U.S.)

DOT/FAA/CT-TN02/06

Tech Report

Technical note

William J. Hughes Technical Center (U.S.)

NTL-AVIATION-Air Traffic Control ; NTL-AVIATION-Aviation Safety/Airworthiness ; NTL-AVIATION-Aviation Human Factors ; NTL-SAFETY AND SECURITY-Aviation Safety/Airworthiness ;

The concept of free flight is intended to provide increased flexibility and efficiency throughout the global airspace system. This idea

could potentially shift aircraft separation responsibility from air traffic controllers to flight crews creating a ‘shared-separation’

authority environment. A real-time, human-in-the-loop study was conducted using facilities at NASA Ames Research Center and the

FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center. The goal was to collect data from controllers and pilots on shared-separation procedures,

information requirements, workload, and situation awareness. The experiment consisted of four conditions that varied levels of

controller and flight crew separation responsibilities. Twelve controllers and six pilots were provided with enhanced traffic and

conflict alerting systems. Results indicated that while safety was not compromised, pilots and controllers had differing opinions

regarding the application of these new tools and the feasibility of the operational concept. This limited investigation demonstrated the

need to further explore the shared-separation concept.

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US Transportation Collection