Thirty pilots flew a simulated VFR cross country flight with one of three levels of display support: a control display with standard instruments, a synthetic vision systems (SVS) display depicting terrain and a highway in the sky (HITS), and a configuration in which the same SVS/HITS display was augmented by an electronic moving map depicting weather. The flight path directed for all three groups penetrated bad weather (IMC) near the destination airport. Results revealed that nearly all pilots in the control condition avoided penetrating the IMC clouds. Significantly more pilots in both SVS conditions penetrated the clouds before diverting to a lower altitude. Their failure to notice the deteriorating weather outside the cockpit was documented by a dominance of head down scanning for the pilots in these two groups who penetrated the weather. Even pilots who did avoid the clouds, looked outside only 1/3 as frequently as those in the control group. The presence of the moving map weather display did not mitigate these manifestations of attentional tunneling. Possible solutions related to display design and training are discussed.


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    Title :

    Effects of Advanced Cockpit Displays on General Aviation Pilots' Decisions to Continue Visual Flight Rules (VFR) Flight Into Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC)


    Contributors:

    Publication date :

    2005


    Size :

    30 pages


    Type of media :

    Report


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English