Group Captain Group captain is a senior commissioned rank in the Royal Air Force, where it originated, as well as the air forces of many countries that have historical British influence. It is sometimes used as the English translation of an equivalent rank i ...

Hugh Patrick Ruffell Smith, (1911 – 4 August 1980) was a British

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

, pilot, and

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

officer. Established the foundational case studies for Crew Resource Management for NASA, Ames Research. Moffatt Field, California U.S.A. 1979 “NASA Technical Memorandum #7848: A Simulator Study of the Interaction of Pilot Workloads with Errors, Vigilance, and Decisions” (Authored Throughout his career, he conducted research into flight safety and

ergonomics Human factors and ergonomics (commonly referred to as human factors) is the application of psychological and physiological principles to the engineering and design of products, processes, and systems. Four primary goals of human factors learnin ...

. His obituary in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'' stated: "few aircraft flying today do not carry some evidence of his research into instrument presentation or

cockpit A cockpit or flight deck is the area, usually near the front of an aircraft or spacecraft, from which a Pilot in command, pilot controls the aircraft. The cockpit of an aircraft contains flight instruments on an instrument panel, and the ...

layout". He was awarded the Air Force Cross three times.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, H. P. Ruffell 1911 births 1980 deaths 20th-century British medical doctors Recipients of the Air Force Cross (United Kingdom) Royal Air Force officers Royal Air Force personnel of World War II