IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2019 - 75

viation is often seen as an innovative
sector eager to seek technological
solutions. It is often assumed that
aircraft cockpits have panels with
electronic displays and many buttons, some labeled "auto." While
this might be the case for commercial aviation (Figure 1), the vast majority of noncommercial civil aircraft cockpits look nothing like
these modern cockpits. Non-commercial civil aircraft,
known as general aviation (GA), typically have cockpits
that mainly consist of analog instruments that show
the heading of the aircraft, the altitude, and the air
speed (Figure 2). While flying, the pilots make calculations using a compass and an aviation calculator. Due
to the slow entry rate of new, glass-cockpit aircraft [1],
the composition of the GA aircraft fleet is not going to
change any time soon.
While such conventional cockpit designs might seem
the norm in GA, emerging technologies, such as spacebased technologies, Global Positioning Systems (GPS),
and portable computers, commonly known as tablets,
are increasingly making their appearance in GA. With
limited statistics on the matter, a recent demographic
study run in Canada [2], showed that four in ten GA
pilots used at least one space-based navigation device
and/or tablet. It can be argued, however, that more GA
pilots use such technologies worldwide. Despite the
widespread use of space-based and portable technologies and their potential benefits, surprisingly they are
not part of the official training for pilots. On the contrary, pilots integrate these technologies into their flight
by learning how to use them on their own. This
approach can be time-consuming and relies on the
pilots to identify the most adequate and safe ways to
embed these technologies into their flights. Some of
these methods are not certified by the regulatory aviation authorities.
The impacts of the emergence of modern technologies on the complex socio-technical system of aviation are reviewed in this article. The main emerging
technologies in GA are presented, and the safety
implications are discussed of using such emerging
technologies by an audience, i.e., pilots, who were
trained on conventional paper maps, compasses,
rulers, and pens. It is important to recognize that
this situation of using a technology without training
not only exists in aviation, but in our daily lives as
well. A typical example is the use of route planning

SEPTEMBER 2019

∕

software applications on smartphones for commuting. Similar to pilots, commuters are not trained in
the use of these applications, and local transport
authorities do not generally certify the applications:
nevertheless, some commuters rely on them to complete their journeys.

What is General Aviation?
GA is defined as all civilian flights that are not commercial. GA comprise 90% of the world's civilian aircraft
[1]. Due to the diversity of the sector, this article focuses on private and recreational flights using fixed-wing
single-engine aircraft, including microlight/ultralight,

FIGURE 1. The cockpit of a commercial aircraft.

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2019