Workload and the En Route controller – an overblown issue?

Abstract

This is the first in a series of papers on the mental process of the En Route Air Traffic Controller. These papers will explore Situational Awareness, Mental Models, Workload, and a variety of related issues in an attempt to both improve the research community’s understanding of the En Route Controller and to enable more productive and applicable future research activities. This paper will describe the learning process and experiences for a typical Developmental trainee.