Stanley Roscoe does a surperb job at presenting the history of aviation psychology from its inception as a scientific discipline in World War II to its metamorphasis as a major field of research where powerful generalizations can be made about human performance in dynamic flight. It simplifies difficult research semantics in aviation psychology for the beginner, while preserving high levels of insight for the expert aviation psychologist.Thorough and well organized, the important aviation literature is laid out along with the most current experimental methodologies up to the 1980's.

Of most value is the section on pilot apptitudes, abilities and performance. In a time when technology makes desktop simulators a potentially powerful predictor of initial flight performance, Roscoe's book simplifies the research literature for the beginning human factors researcher and enlightens the serious experimenter on the methods and controls necessary to discover measures of human performance in flight--without even going flying. Reading this book should be prerequisite to any researcher's venture in aviation experimental designs that hope to tap at pilots' cognitive fidelity in dual and multi-task situations.

This is a must read for beginning students of experimental psychology whose interests lay in the field of human factors in aviation cockpit design, human performance, and selection criteria.