A. Continue the mission, hoping the link recovers. B. Immediately initiate return-to-home (RTH). C. Climb to higher altitude to improve line of sight. D. Wait 30 seconds, then command RTH if no recovery.
Development and Validation of a Situational Judgement Test (SIT-UAS) for Unmanned Aircraft System Operators: Predicting Non-Technical Skills in Remote Piloting sit uas
Situational Judgement Test, Unmanned Aircraft Systems, non-technical skills, pilot selection, human factors. 1. Introduction The proliferation of UAS (drones) across civil, commercial, and military domains has increased demand for effective operator selection and training (ICAO, 2022). While technical proficiency in flight control is measurable, critical incidents often involve failures of judgement—e.g., prioritizing a visual fix over battery state, or misinterpreting controller handoffs. Immediately initiate return-to-home (RTH)
The final 25-item SIT-UAS demonstrated good internal consistency (α = 0.84) and inter-rater agreement for scoring (Fleiss’ κ = 0.76). SIT-UAS scores correlated significantly with instructor-rated non-technical competence (r = 0.61, p < .001) and predicted simulator mission success (OR = 3.4 per SD increase). (3) Validation with 150 UAS trainees
A three-phase mixed-methods approach: (1) Critical incident interviews with 20 expert UAS operators to generate realistic scenarios; (2) Expert panel (n=10) to establish correct/incorrect response keys; (3) Validation with 150 UAS trainees, comparing SIT-UAS scores against instructor ratings and simulator performance.