The thermal comfort of the cockpit: A pilot's experience

Abstract: Saab takes great measures to ensure that the cockpit is a great working environment for the pilot. This paper aims to expand the knowledge of thermal comfort by assembling Saab’s atmosphere-, cabin and pilot-models. In order to ensure the viability of the assembled model, a qualitative study was performed with test pilots. The interviews were reduced to a few flight cases, which were tested in the assembled model to verify that the thermal discomforts that the pilots experience could be accurately predicted. Furthermore, a prediction of comfort, according to European standards, was implemented. From the interviews situations when the pilot feel discomfort could be identified, two flight cases situations and one ground case. The model simulate how the thermal environment affect the pilot, hence only the two flight cases could be analyzed. The result from the model shows the temperature in those body parts that the pilots have expressed are uncomfortable. Predicted Mean Vote, PMV, predicts comfort on a 6-degree scale, given environment parameters such as pressure and temperature. The Predicted Percentage Dissatisfied, PPD, describes the number of people, in percent, who are uncomfortable at a given PMV. These measures of comfort were used to compute the comfort in the different parts of the body. The model simulation agrees with the pilot’s experiences in some of the body parts, but not all of them. By taking the humidity into account the simulation result may be more accurate. The humidity increases the PPD value in case 2 when the humidity increases. Finally, in order to adopt the comfort analysis presented in this paper, the model had to be revised, and updated with increased detail.