Situational awareness: the trainability of the near-threshold information acquisition dimension.

Ten subjects participated in training to identify abstract visual stimuli under three successively more difficult protocols where the stimuli (targets) were small, and target-on time was 67 ms (2,100 trials) or 33 ms (2,100 trials). Joysticks and push buttons were used for responses. The protocols were target detection, recognition, and identification. Backward masking was used to control visual access time. The experimental design was repeated measurements, each subject as his own control. Subjects exceeded 95% correct responses early under the 67 ms target-on time condition. For the 33 ms condition, most subjects achieved between 70 and 95% correct responses at the end of the training. Differences between protocol challenges at 33 ms were significant (at or beyond p < 0.01). The outcome of this study is consistent with our concept of situational awareness described in our overview paper.

Situational awareness is more than exceptional vision.

Superior situational awareness, an extraordinary awareness of the total flight environment and aerial combat situation, is a significant contributor to success in aerial engagement. Review of over 1,000 published sources has led to the formulation of situational awareness as being principally in the cognitive domain. Superior awareness involves exceptional sensitivity to performance-critical cues in the operational environment, an exceptional capacity to anticipate changes in system states and operational conditions, and the ability to act on those changes in a proactive mode. Three important constructs are described: 1) automatic information processing; 2) near-threshold processing; and 3) skilled memory. In combination, they constitute a pilot attribute which uniquely facilitates the full armamentarium of skills and abilities of the superior tactical pilot.

Human amino acid excretion during and following an extended airborne alert.

The urinary excretion of free amino acids was measured in 15 men who participated in a continuous airborne alert for an extended period of time. These men made up one of three teams which took turns so as to assure that at least one team remained airborne in an EC-135J aircraft at all times during the 96-h alert. The team making up the test group herein reported was airborne for 8.5 h on each of four successive days; flights were flown during the daytime. The data strongly suggest that the participants experienced anticipatory stress during the early part of the first two flight days of the alert, after which the excretion of amino acids was virtually unaltered. Additionally, amino acid excretion during the 24-h period following the alert was essentially in accord with baseline values established for another groups of subjects.

Flight-induced changes in human amino acid excretion.

A biomedical appraisal of flight stress was made by means of a battery of urinary determinations on crewmen who participated in a 96-h airborne alert. The crewmen were divided into three teams, each consisting of 16 members and each manning an EC-135J aircraft. These teams took turns so as to assure that one team was airborne at all times during the alert; flights lasted either 8.5 or 12 h. Preflight baseline data were collected from only one of the three teams. Based on baseline and flight data obtained for that team, urea excretion correlated well with amino acid output which, in turn, correlated remarkably well with alpha-amino nitrogen output. These data collectively revealed the following flight effects: a) marked anticipatory stress immediately before the start of the airborne alert, b) marked flight stress late in each flight flown during the first 48 h, and c) adaptation to flight stress during the final 48 h.