Situated design of line-oriented flight training (LOFT): a case study in a Brazilian airline

This paper describes an exploratory situated approach for the design, development, standardization, and implementation of line-oriented flight training (LOFT) in a major airline. LOFT was conceived in aviation industry to be a practical application of crew resource management (CRM) concepts. The situated approach combines a set of methods and techniques from ergonomics and human factors disciplines. These methods were supported by social construction enabling the involvement and participation of different actors of the operational, tactical, and strategic level of the company. Under this framework, situated design is progressively established by socially constructed patterns up to a situated design comprising the construction of scenarios, training tools, procedures, structures, organization, flight documents, operations, and further training management contents. Our findings indicate that LOFT situated design, framed by social construction, can be applied to any aviation system with a specific culture and organization, which may be different from the ones that were implicitly or explicitly taken into account during the development of general LOFT guidelines.