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Aerial vehicles equipped with infrared thermal sensors facilitate quick density estimates of wildlife, but detection error can arise from the thermal sensor and viewer of the infrared video. We reviewed published research to determine how commonly these sources of error have been assessed in studies using infrared video from aerial platforms to sample wildlife. The number of annual articles pertaining to aerial sampling using infrared thermography has increased drastically since 2018, but past studies inconsistently assessed sources of imperfect detection. We illustrate the importance of accounting for some of these types of error in a case study on white‐tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus in Indiana, USA, using a simple double‐observer approach. In our case study, we found evidence of false negatives associated with the viewer of infrared video. Additionally, we found that concordance between the detections of two viewers increased when using a red‐green‐blue camera paired with the infrared thermal sensor, when altitude decreased and when more stringent criteria were used to classify thermal signatures as deer. We encourage future managers and ecologists recording infrared video from aerial platforms to use double‐observer methods to account for viewer‐induced false negatives when video is manually viewed by humans. We also recommend combining infrared video with red‐green‐blue video to reduce false positives, applying stringent verification standards to detections in infrared and red‐green‐blue video and collecting data at lower altitudes over snow when needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pilot decision-making is an important issue to flight safety. Students in collegiate flight training are pursuing careers as professional pilots, and what they initially learn about decision-making will guide their actions throughout their flying careers. Investigating aeronautical decision-making can be a tool for improving the decision-making quality of collegiate flight students and subsequent professional pilots. The more flight students are introduced to the process of aeronautical decision-making, the stronger their understanding of the limitations of their abilities. With the close link between flight safety and decision-making, it is only natural that the safety culture as a whole will be improved through this process. The purpose of this paper is not to determine the effectiveness or validity of the situational judgment test, but illustrate the utilization of the situational judgment test within a collegiate flight training program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many components of flight training that students subconsciously use to develop the safety culture, they will adopt. This mindset is acquired from the beginning of flight training and continues to grow throughout each student's respective career. There are many routine tasks that are accomplished for every flight that often become neglected over time, and this creates a gap in the safety culture that must be filled. One task that has the potential for becoming routine is the aircraft preflight. Aircraft preflight inspection is a learned process acquired early in the flight training of pilots. From these early lessons, it is assumed that a careful pilot will develop sound, enduring habit patterns for assessing the preflight airworthiness of various aircraft. However, because of differences in the instructional approach, variations in flight instructor experience, and individual student learning styles, observable, measurable differences in the way students approach the preflight process often result. Some students learn methodical, thorough, and consistent preflight methods while other students demonstrate slipshod, haphazard, and unsafe techniques. Clearly, assessment of aircraft airworthiness using the preflight inspection is the safety starting block for any flight. Because the instructional Law of Primacy suggests that what is learned first is best retained, it is imperative that proper, systematic preflight procedures be properly taught and judiciously followed in order to create and nurture both an individual acceptance of safety and a collective culture of safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing a safety culture in collegiate flight training is often a critical step in aviation safety that must be approached from several different directions. A key element in the development of a safety culture is the implementation of an accident/incident prevention program. To aid in the development of such a program requires numerous information sources with maintenance databases being just one such source. Maintenance databases can be utilized not only in the necessary analysis after an accident or incident, but also prior to such an occurrence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]