Product Review – Fatigue Awareness for Pilots – The HighTop Company

I am often asked to write product reviews for clients. I decline unless the product is of sufficient quality that I am comfortable with two things:

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1)    That I can freely write an accurate review, and
2)    That the review  will represent my clients in a way that meets my responsibility as their marketing consultant.

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It is a pleasure to run across a product that meets both of those criteria, as is the case with the Fatigue Awareness for Pilots course.

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In the interest of full disclosure, Steve Leon of HighTop Company is a client of Aviation Business Consultants (ABCI), and the  review below represents my professional opinion of the product.

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Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.

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Overview

Pilot fatigue is “insidious,” even for experts and experienced pilots.

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Pilot fatigue seems like a simple concept, and the solution seems simple as well. Pilots are professional people and are expected to simply use their mandated “down time” to get enough sleep. They are expected to manage their lives in a way that does not compromise their fitness for duty. Our lives as passengers depend on this expectation, and our businesses (if we work in aviation) depend on it as well.

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But the concept and the practice are often more complex. Pilot fatigue was cited as a major factor in response to the recent Colgan Air crash in Buffalo, New York.
Bill Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation, said policies involving fatigue can be difficult to implement because workers don’t like having their employers interfere with their personal lives. “It’s hard to tell people what to do during their day off,” he said.

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Voss, a former pilot, said he’d felt fatigue while on the job. “There are times you work long hours,” Voss said. “It’s insidious. It’s just like any other impairment. It’s like having too much to drink. It can sneak up on you.”
- Stephanie Chen, CNN

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HighTop Company has developed a web-based course for pilots. This course reviews the types, recognition, reduction, prevention and hazards of fatigue associated with professional pilots.

Benefits

• The format is very accommodating of pilots’ objectives and lifestyle, since the course can be completed anywhere there is an internet connection. So those bits and pieces of time spent at an FBO, terminal or hotel can be put to productive use.
• The bookmarking feature improves on this – each time a pilot logs into the program he is taken directly to the place he left off.
• The interactive nature of the program provides animated illustrations and vivid imagery that assist with material retention.
• The graphic images are evocative and entertaining. They keep a pilot’s interest and help to remember key concepts.
• The content is very relevant to pilots – it addresses the reality of schedule, caffeine, monotony, oxygen, vibration, and other factors affecting the real environment of pilots, and how it is different from fatigue in other professions.
• The tone is respectful of learners – we are all familiar with courses that were written by a lawyer and then delivered verbatim by a human resource person that doesn’t understand the material. This course is practical, useful, and sincere.

Course Content

This is an example where a drawing is used to add interest to a graph or chart. The visual image builds during the discussion.

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It is apparent that this course was written by and for pilots. The content is far and away above most “courseware” sold online that is little more than a PowerPoint presentation with narration.

Resource Section

The resource section is a great addition to the course because this applies the knowledge to the real world.  Incidents are dissected to explain what happened and how they could have been prevented.

Competitive Analysis

The ideal training materials are cost-effective, time independent, offer rich multimedia experiences, include interaction to keep the learner’s interests, accommodate completion during multiple sittings with interruptions, and include a means of providing completion records and certificates for your personnel files.

Summary

This is an ideal course for initial and recurrent training for professional pilots. It addresses a very timely and important topic, and it belongs in the library and training plan for airlines, air transport companies, charter operations, commuter services, business flight operations departments, and flight training organizations.

Purchase information

The course retails for $24.95 per license and is available from http://www.hightopco.com
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