Managing Automation

Automation has transformed aviation. Modern systems reduce workload, improve precision, and provide capabilities that earlier generations of pilots could scarcely imagine. They also change the pilot's role, creating new challenges involving mode awareness, monitoring, workload, skill retention, and the ability to intervene when the aircraft behaves differently than expected.

Managing Automation examines the evolving relationship between pilots and increasingly capable aircraft systems. Drawing on official accident investigations, established human-factors research, historical developments, and practical operational examples, Matthew James McDermott explores how automation can support safety while introducing new forms of complexity.

The book considers major aviation events including Air France Flight 447, the Boeing 737 MAX accidents, Qantas Flight 72, Turkish Airlines Flight 1951, and American Airlines Flight 965. These cases are used to examine automation surprise, mode confusion, startle, complacency, mental models, situational awareness, and system-design assumptions.

The discussion then turns toward practical application. Readers will find guidance on active monitoring, predicting system behavior, recognizing divergence, selecting an appropriate level of automation, maintaining manual proficiency, improving crew coordination, and simplifying the operation when understanding begins to weaken.

Managing Automation is written for pilots, flight instructors, aviation students, safety professionals, and readers interested in the human side of modern flight. Its central message is straightforward: automation delivers its greatest benefit when pilots understand its behavior, monitor it deliberately, and remain prepared to manage the aircraft when circumstances change.