Human Factors Course

[Skywrench]

According to regulations, AMEs are to have recurrent human factors training every 3 years. I recently sat through a CRM (crew resource management) course, as it satisfies TC's requirements for human factors training for AMEs, but 85% of the course was aimed at cockpit operations during flight. After a brief discussion with my DM, he made the statement that anyone can conduct a human factors course for recurrent training as long as they follow the guidelines as set out in a kit available from TC. Now this got me thinking about building a course of my own, which my employer can use with the possibility of my course being employed by other companies for thier training. I know how bland a lot of these courses are, and I would like to find a way to make them more informative and enjoyablebe those of us that are required to take the training, so here in a nutshell are my thoughts:

TC always speaks of the "dirty dozen" in human factors, but I would like to conduct training based upon real examples within the industry in Canada as scaled down case studies for the various points in the "dozen". My thoughts are that if you can provide examples from the country in which we are all employed, it may hit closer to home. On the same note, covering all facets of the industry, from fling wing to plank wing, heavies to fart carts to further drive that point that no area of the industry is at an advantage over another may be of a benefit. Keep in mind, these are my preliminary thoughts, and there is a lot of work that would go into putting a course together.

I would like to hear thoughts and opinions from everyone and anyone that has been through HF training. Been through any good courses, and what made them good? Likewise, what made the bad ones bad? Based on the simplified model of what I would like to achieve with a course I would put together as stated above, do you think this is a good model for HF training? I know HF training at best is usually pretty dry material, and I am looking for a way to conduct a course as an AME for AMEs where people don't walk out of the course with the notion that was "too similar to the last one" and "overly boring". All input is appreciated.

 

[Charles W.]

Just as an asside Skywrench.

I have done a fifty year course in human factors leading to good decision making process. It has really worked for me.

Unfortunately I don't know how to write a manual from it.

I know... I know, that is not what you are looking for.............but I had to try.

Rev. chas W.

 

[MagSeal]

My last HF course was in house, pretty much bought from CAMC.

I do agree that more case studies with local and recent happenings that are particular to our industry would be a great benefit. I'm tired of hearing about aloha airlines.

To deal with the dry material, you need to persoanlly be a good teacher. A dynamic individual can make or break the boredom line. Each course I've done (4 now)has always had a slightly different twist to it, but the core is always the same.

 

[graunch1]

The biggest stumbling block from using examples is covered under one word. LAWSUIT. You will have to be very careful about your examples as some companies get pretty upset if they find out htat you are using them as a bad example................Even if the incident/accident is in the "public domain"

 

[MagSeal]

you'd have to use examples derived from released reports. Either from the TSB or from CTD and change the names of those involved.

Or we could just make up some real cute stories, like how a certain engineer felt betrayed by a certain pilot, and this affected his work ethic to the point where he could no longer perform his duties well, losing sleep, losing concentration, "inadvertantly" leaving a very important fuel line torqued improperly.....

 

[Skywrench]

I agree on the lawsuit thoughts, and that folks would not want to be made a bad example of. There are lots of lower profile incidents and occurances that do not make the national news which would make it easier to omit names of operators, but are still good examples that can be used for training. I guess I am hoping that more peoples mentalities lie in the same direction that mine does, in that everyone makes errors, and those errors can be used to attempt to prevent mistakes in the future. Personally, I would have no problem contacting operators involved in incidents to gain thier approval, as it would also allow more insight if they were willing to share any internal investigations that were done.

 

[MagSeal]

if you ever broaden your studies to include Dangerous Goods Transportation...give me a call. I've been the 'case study' on a couple incidents, and will gladly allow you to use my stories to better educate others.

 

[skullcap]

Oh Man;

You are going to have to elaborate on this one Maggie, I don't want to be thinking it is the transportation of really dangerous goods, ya know, beer, wings, tequila,,,,,,pretty explosive mixture. :wacko:

I can see the headlines now, Eurocopter plant shut down due to minor gas leak which caused a small explosion in a customer's helicopter. It seems that an Aircraft Maintenance Engineer was installed a"donut buddy" in an AS350B3 when a spark from drill he was using ignited an unknown gas source. The AME was found hanging from a nearby chain hoist sans uniform and seemingly in shock as cannot remember anything past the eaarly morning hours prior to work.

A local spokesperson from eurocopter says he doesn't know f09k nothing about any explosion but knows f98k all about what else is going on.

sc

I know, I know, back to work........sorry.

 

[MagSeal]

I'll give you the condensed version for now Skullcap.

Unfortunately it doesn't involve explosives, wings, beer and/or donuts.

It involves actual, true experiences of the wrong side of the regulations with transporting dangerous goods.

One incident involved some rather young, guns blazing, cop wannabe's, who decided that my measly pick-up with two full drums and one empty drum was a major faux pas. And decidedly issued me a pretty hefty fine. They gave me kudos for at least having them properly strapped in the truck. I didn't ask if I got a sale price on the ticket though. Apparantly, the labels on the drums themselves, which were all showing outboard were not enough. Thank goodness for expense accounts.

The second was down in wonderful Wyoming. Let me tell you, those state troopers sure carry everything in their trucks. From rifles, to teargas. I had the opportunity to take a very close look inside for quite some time while he issued me a very substantial ticket, which I of course had to pay immediately, or go to jail until it was paid, (commercial truck= bigger fines) Glad the bank machine let me take out over $700 US. My pilot thought it was quite funny. I wasn't laughing as hard. At least that time I had a couple placards on the truck, the other two missing ones were about a 5 minute drive away, damn near made it there. It amazes me that the previous engineer drove around there for a whole month and never got stopped, me...might as well have put a target on me I guess.

After this, The guys at CHL decided that a course was in good order and invited me to join, and possibly learn something. The guy teaching the course, brought up two very fine examples of what can go wrong if you don't follow the rules, sure glad everyone pointed me out as the culprit to both. Made my day, I was a celebrity.... B)

 

[skullcap]

Damn, here I thought for sure it would something awe inspiringly silly.

So, thats why they started to listen when I told them everyone needs dangerous goods by road training, here I thought they were starting to listen. WRONG, money talks.

If I find any t-shirts will send them to Eurocopter? What size?

sc

 

[MagSeal]

ask me....XL.....ask my friends.....well, lets not, i'm sensitive about that.... :blink:

 

[mrwhirlwind]

The best human factors course I had was in house and the TC rep had a large group of experienced AME's come up with an AD for a fictitious scenario without grounding the entire fleet nationwide. The faulted part had caused a fatality but seemed somewhat isolated. The separate teams of engineers all came up with different criteria for the AD and it was a real eye opener...kinda made you think.