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Objective: This study investigated whether stress training introduced during the acquisition of simulatorbased flight skills enhances pilot performance during subsequent stressful flight operations in an actual aircraft.Background: Despite knowledge that preconditions to aircraft accidents can be strongly influenced by pilot stress, little is known about the effectiveness of stress training and how it transfers to operational flight settings.Method: For this study, 30 participants with no flying experience were assigned at random to a stress-trained treatment group or a control group. Stress training consisted of systematic pairing of skill acquisition in a flight simulator with stress coping mechanisms in the presence of a cold pressor. Control participants received identical flight skill acquiSition training but without stress training. Participants then performed a stressful flying task in a Piper Archer aircraft.Results: Stress-trained research participants flew the aircraft more smoothly, as recorded by aircraft telemetry data, and generally better, as recorded by flight instructor evaluations, than did control participants. Conclusions:Introducing stress coping mechanisms during flight training improved performance in a stressful flying task. Application:The results of this study indicate that stress training during the acquisition of flight skills may serve to enhance pilot performance in stressful operational flight and, therefore, might mitigate the contribution of pilot stress to aircraft mishaps.

These costs must be considered at the operational level.

Vigilance research has found that observers find the task to be unpleasant and mentally demanding (Warm, Finomore, Vidulich, & Funke, 2015). However sustained attention plays a critical role in numerous operational settings where human operators must monitor automated human-machine systems in the event of potential problems. The current study extended the work from Dillard and his colleagues (Dillard, Warm, Funke, Vidulich, Nelson, Eggemeier, et al., 2013) who explored if there are other dimensions that might affect the workload associated with performing a vigilance task. The area that they explored was the temporal context of the vigilance task on its effects on task performance and perceived mental workload. Borrowing from a temporal manipulation procedure developed by Sackett and colleagues (Sackett, Meyvis, Nelson, Converse & Sackett, 2010) in which they manipulated perceived time progression (PTP) of the participant while they performed a cognitive task. Sackett et al., (2010) manipulated the PTP by developing their studies to deceive the participant into thinking the task they were performing was longer or shorter than the actual time. Upon completion of the task, participants filled out questionnaires related to the hedonic and temporal evaluation of the task. Participants that were told the task was longer than they actually participated for (time flies conditions) rated times as flying and the task more as more enjoyable.

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