Automated Trend Analysis for Navy-Carrier Landing Attempts

Abstract

A replacement system IPARTS is being built for the current U.S. Navy APARTS handheld data-entry device that records evaluations of landings of pilots on aircraft carriers. Navy aircraft are difficult to land and costly to repair, and extensive training and performance monitoring is important. Part of this task includes summarizing older data on landing attempts for comparison of pilot performances. We built tools for analyzing trends exhibited by pilots, pilot groups, aircraft, and evaluators in regard to grades, landing details, and verbal comments. Results are shown on a sample of 85,571 passes representing about 20% of the current Navy records, a significantly larger study than has ever been conducted. These results enabled building several kinds of predictive models of pilot performance which help identify particular pilot problems, and this should help in designing training programs. Fairness of grading of pilots was also assessed by comparisons between military units, aircraft, and graders. The most novel part of the research was understanding and computing statistics on the comments, which are in a telegraphic format using a unique language; a 2433-rule standardization routine and a parser were built to interpret them. Comments were essential in understanding the context of grades. The comment counts were also especially helpful in designing a user interface for a replacement grading device we designed and tested. This work should provide new insights into the performance of military pilots.