Communication during terrain flight

Safe and efficient terrain flight requires that the copilot or navigator give verbal navigation instructions that allow the pilot to respond quickly and effectively with minimum confusion and head-in-cockpit time. The intracockpit communications of forty-seven Nap-of-the-Earth (NOE) training flights were tape recorded. NOE communication questionnaires were developed and administered to sixty student pilots and seventy-four instructor pilots. Analysis of the tapes and questionnaire data indicated that the crew members were spending 30.1 percent of their time in communication concerning navigation. Analysis of the tape recordings also indicated that new student pilot (SP) flight crews exhibited a greater density of communication (t = 10.07, df = 45, p smaller than .05) than did the SP flight crews that had been flying together. Seventy-seven percent of the IPs indicated that formal navigation communication instructions presented in the classroom would be more desirable than IPs teaching their students individually the navigation terms and techniques that should be used.