A Canadian university study has found that female pilots seem to work better under pressure than their male counterparts. It further suggests that women have “unique strengths” when things get hairy. “These findings are exciting because they push us to rethink how we evaluate pilots,” said Naila Ayala, lead author of the study and postdoctoral scholar in Waterloo’s Multisensory Brain and Cognition Lab. “We can’t assume that because two pilots are looking at the same things, they will react the same way. Our study shows that women may be better at keeping control and making decisions in stressful flight scenarios.”
Overall, the study found that women were more consistent and made fewer mistakes when they responded to the various scenarios. The research subjects wore eye tracking glasses and were put through standard emergency drills like engine failures and landing issues. By tracking eye movements, the researchers were able to correlate their visual attention with their reactions to each situation. The results could change flight training standards and practices. “Understanding how different people perform under pressure helps us build better training programs for everyone, safer cockpits, and more inclusive aviation systems,” said Suzanne Kearns, associate professor and director of the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Aeronautics. Video below shows how the eye tracking system works.
Clicking through the link, it was interesting to see more details that were left out of your summary, such as that this was all done in simulators, and with low-time pilots. It would be interesting to see if this changes given other parameters.
Best wishes for the new endeavor here.