Assessment of General Aviation Cognitive Weather Tasks: Recommendations for Autonomous Learning and Training in Aviation Weather

General aviation (GA) operations incur the majority of fatal weather-related accidents. Previous research highlights the lack of aviation weather knowledge and skills as a possible contributing factor to the stagnant GA weather-related accident rate. This is congruent with accident data indicating weather-related accidents mostly involved non-instrument rated pilots and/or pilots with low flight hour experience flying into inadvertent meteorological conditions, such as low ceiling/visibility. However, though weather has serious and potentially fatal implications toward flight safety, weather training is an underrepresented area of pilots’ education, training, and testing. As such, autonomous (i.e. self-study) learning and training may be a viable training tool to expose pilots to various weather scenarios and to develop the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) related to aviation weather. This paper will focus on evaluating complex cognitive weather tasks and providing recommendations for developing an effective autonomous learning and training module.