Significance of Aircraft Maintenance Personnel’s Reaction Time During Physical Workload and Mental Workload

Abstract

The paper examines the significance of reaction time recorded by aircraft maintenance personnel whilst undertaking both physical and mental workload in an aircraft maintenance hangar setting. The workloads included surface patch repair, implementing corrosion prevention on mating surface, calculating various rivet dimensions, verification of patched skin, and drilling necessary holes on the intended layout of the patched skin. Their reaction time was recorded using the online RED LIGHT—GREEN LIGHT Reaction Time Test. Both mean and standard deviation were analyzed; reaction time was measured in milliseconds (ms) for all the seen tasks types given. Results have shown a significant increase in reaction time between Trial 1 (two hours) and Trial 2 (four hours). It is hoped that future studies can focus more on personnel’s reaction time during work as an alternative for maintaining personnel’s safety and wellbeing. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.