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SUBJECTS : AIRCREW STRESS by Dr. F.S. Preston : BODY RHYTHMS by Prof. F. Halberg : SLEEP AND LONG RANGE AVIATION by Capt. F. H. Hawkins
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Mr.President, distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I would first like to thank the Dutch Air Line Pilots' Association for honoring me with the chairmanship for this morning's session. our first lecturer this morning is Dr.Preston, who is deputy Director Medical Services to British Airways and as many of you know a leading authority on aerospace medical subjects with more than fourty publications to his name. Dr. Preston's lecture will be about aircrew stress.
This puts us right in the middle of some of the main problems of human factors
research. I am referring to the problem of scientifically defining concepts that are
basically linguistic constructions or constructs as they are called by many scientists.
Examples of constructs are numerous. To name but a few: Intelligence, mental load, anxiety
and of course,,stress itself can be regarded as constructs. One of the main problems of
human factor researchers is to define such constructs in a way that makes them measurable.
Measurable in such a way that the quantities obtained validly represent different levels
of the construct as intended. Intelligence is an example of a construct of which the
process of validation is reasonably advanced.
The I.Q. to most psychologists is a reasonable measure of the construct intelligence. It
has predictive power in the relevant areas which is ultimately what we expect of valid
measures. Nearly half a century of research was necessary before the I.Q. and the ways to
measure it, were more or less generally accepted as an adequate measure of intelligence.
Constructs like workload, stress, fatigue, to name but a few that concern us to-day, have
a long way to go before they have status.
However, I would like to emphasize at this point that clearly defined procedures exist to
develop valid measures for constructs. But these procedures are elaborate time consuming
and costly.
I am confident, however, that certainly within the next fifty years we will have generally
accepted and valid measures for constructs like stress, workload and many others that
concern us in human factors research to-day. In the meantime let us quote Albert Einstein
who in his wisdom stated that:" In so far as mathematics apply to reality it is
not certain, and so far as mathematics is certain, it does not apply to reality".
Dr. Preston, may I now invite you to take the floor.
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Biographical notes
Capt. Drs. J. P. Krol
Peter Krol started his career as an airline pilot with BOAC Associated Companies in the
Middle East. After the pilot jobs depression in the early sixties, he took a Master degree
in Experimental Psychology, specializing in the Neuro-Psychology and
Electro-Encephalography, with a doctoral thesis on early signs of cerebral deterioration
in the Electroencephalogram.
His "stress" research includes evaluation of Physiological and other possible
workload measures with : flight crew (KLM) and ATC Controllers (Schiphol), both in
simulators and actual flight - Royal Navy divers in extreme conditions such as depths to
300 ft under nitrogen saturation (undersea laboratory Helgoland) and during "free
escape" - Military and Civil parachute jumpers before and during freefall. He tries
out these experiments as a guinea pig himself first, before exposing his subjects to
possible danger.
His publication include lectures and articles on this research, on Aerospace Medical and Undersea Medical Congresses and in the related Journals.
Capt. H.M. Vermeulen.
Capt. H.M. Vermeulen was born in 1925 and started his career as an airline pilot with
K.L.M. in 1952. Since 27 years he is an active airline pilot, his present function is
Captain DC-10.
In the Dutch Air Line Pilots´Association he served two years as vice-chairman of the Council and twelve years as Chairman if the Council. He is a member of several committees for several times and at present, serves seven years as Principal Vice-President of IFALPA.
Capt. G.W.T.M. Vos.
G.W.T.M. Vos joined the Civil Government Flying School (RLS) in the years 1968-1971. After
eight years of being a first officer on a DC-9 Aircraft, he is now operating on the DC-8.
At present he is Vice Chairman of the V.N.V. committee on Ergonomics and Aviation Medicine, and has as such followed a two-week training course on Human Factors in Civil Aviation Air Transport Operation in Birmingham given by Prof. E. Edwards.
He started to work as a Project Leader on this Symposium in 1977.
Capt. Mr. Dr. A. A. van Wijk.
Aart A. van Wijk (45) received his initial aviation education at the Civil Government
Flying School (RLS) in the years 1951-1954, followed by a two year term in the Royal Dutch
Airforce on Gloster Meteors. In 1956 he joined K.L.M. where he is presently employed as
Captain DC-9.
He started the study of Law in 1963 and obtained the Master-at-Laws´qualification in 1968. Thereafter he was engaged in the research for his Doctor-at-Law thesis : "Aircraft Accident Inquiry in the Netherlands", which he successfully defended in 1974. In 1971 he was elected as Chairman at the Legal Study Group of IFALPA and since that time he has represented IFALPA at numerous legal meetings held under the auspices of ICAO. He joined the Board of Editors of the AIR LAW". Journal (published in the Netherlands) at its foundation 1975.