About pilotgreenland.

pilotgreenland. is a platform for the research:

Preparedness and Perceptions: in the VIRTUAL Simulator and the REAL Hostile environment of Greenland -

Each Chapter engages how pilots fly weather.

Turbulence and wind

Fog, Snow, and Icing

Civil Twilight, flying in the blue hour

This multimodal platform envisions the research merging the helicopter, pilot, and weather interactively engaging the visual - contributing to a better understanding of preparedness, weather situational awareness (WSA) and Greenland's constant shifts with nature.

My hope is that engaging visually on this platform will emphasize the Human in the decision-making process with the machine and the transferring of what we train in virtual environments into what we bring to the real environment. Ultimately, it goes both ways.

In light of this, some of the 'old timers' can tell a few good weather stories. They would say it's the technology in gathering weather data that has changed, not the physics of flight and theory of weather. It is not just weather technology, it's the machines they fly that have also advanced. In this sense, I take into account the machine/helicopter, the enabling effect in how the pilots fly, and most noticeably, in the flying environment defined as hostile by EASA, European Aviation Safety Agency. In Greenland's hostile environment with the predominant risk of adverse weather, a few determining factors of 'hostile' applies: if a successful emergency landing cannot be assured; if the surface is inadequate to land, and with the underlying issue of exposure to the elements; not least, if Search and Rescue cannot be provided consistently with the exposure.

Flying in Greenland has a lot to do with preparedness – as perceived in the environment, flying in it.

Pilot's perception of the environment is from the eyes-in-the-head-on the-body-flying-in-the air (on par with James J. Gibson's (1986) eyes-in-the-head-on the-body-on-the-ground). Enabled by the machine, they fly in the atmosphere where all the weather happens. They see weather suspended in the air.

For those aviation enthusiasts fascinated by weather, pilots see the weather from a particular point of view - a pilot's eye.

As I’ve realized after spending time with the pilots at the various settlement helicopter bases in Greenland, pilots with local knowledge of the weather allow for a level of preparedness. With an emphasis on preparedness that of knowledge of weather, or in Aviation terms - situational awareness of weather - this is the broader concern. That is, weather situational awareness (WSA) comes from what is perceived in the environment; when pilots fly, they perceive the environment in foreseeing weather, and making good weather decisions, which comes from past experiences flying in it, both in good and bad weather (noting a Greenlandic pilot of 18 years experience). As weather can change rapidly, pilots navigate their flight environment mediated by the machine. As noted above, pilots have a few weather stories to tell.

To grasp both hostile and preparedness, flying in Greenland provides an unparalleled precedent.

Moreover, because Gibson’s (1986, p. 141) theory of affordances “points two ways” – specific to the observer and the information to avail is specific to the affordance - it has the potential to be employed in other disciplines. From a postphenomenological lens of technology mediating our world, Don Ihde (1990), assembled and bracketed ways to think about technology, humans, and the world.

As for the pilot’s world, the helicopter 'mediates' how pilots perceive or have knowledge of weather systems through flying in it, building up experiences enabled by the helicopter. In the complex world of instruments in the cockpit, an autopilot is almost a requirement. It is through the weather systems that I explore this technological 'mediating’ effect, drawing on Gibson's (1986) affordances and referring to Asle H. Kiran (2015) in the 'enabling - constraining' effect, noting Ihde's 'two-sidedness' of technologies.

Continuing on this technological level, utilizing Gibson's affordances (Kiran 2015), the Simulator's virtual environment affords another level of preparedness in simulating training procedures specific to what is directly trained, whether a night flying procedure or a dual engine failure.

Thus, the question that begins and follows through this platform is, what does it mean to perceive the environment – virtual and real?

I explore this question within the weather system of Greenland above in each section, including an interactive mode to click on. In the cockpit, the instrument panel has buttons to click on. Once clicked - the REAL appears in a short video. To engage with what is the REAL and what is the VIRTUAL, clips of the virtual training sessions, pilot stories in voice recordings, and GoPro videos in the real environment enhance the mediating effect of technologies.