Human Factors FLY
The human side of flying, taught by a long-haul captain A live online course for new and aspiring airline pilots. Learn how pilots really think, communicate and make decisions on the flight deck, and start building the habits airlines look for from day one.
Why human factors matters in aviation
Aircraft are incredibly reliable. People are where it gets interesting
Modern airliners are some of the safest machines ever built. Engines rarely fail, systems are duplicated and triplicated, and procedures have been refined over decades. Yet when things do go wrong, the cause is very rarely just the aircraft. Most estimates suggest that human factors play a part in around 70 to 80 percent of aviation accidents and incidents.
Human factors is the study of how people actually perform in the real world: how we perceive what is going on around us, how we make decisions under pressure, how we communicate as a crew, and how things like fatigue, stress and workload quietly chip away at our performance.
It isn't about blame. It's about understanding that every pilot, however skilled, is human. The best pilots aren't the ones who never make mistakes. They're the ones who understand why mistakes happen, spot them early and work with their crew to catch them before they matter.
That's why human factors sits at the heart of modern airline training, from Crew Resource Management and Threat and Error Management to the competency-based assessments used in airline selection and recurrent training.
The habits you build now are the habits you'll fly with.
Why start now, at the beginning of your journey
Most pilots meet human factors properly once they're already in an airline. By then, a lot of habits are already set. Starting early gives you a real head start. Build good habits from your very first lesson. How you brief, how you speak up, how you manage your workload: these become second nature far more easily when you learn them from the start. Stand out at airline assessments. Group exercises, interviews and simulator checks are designed to see how you communicate, make decisions and work in a team. Understanding human factors helps you show the behaviours airlines are genuinely looking for. Make your flight training smoother. Knowing how stress, fatigue and workload affect your learning helps you get more out of every lesson and every pound you spend on training. Get ahead on your theory. Human Performance and Limitations is part of your ATPL exams. This course brings that theory to life with real flight deck examples, so it actually makes sense. Fly safer, sooner. Student pilots face real threats too. Recognising them early can make all the difference on a solo cross-country or a tricky approach.