Progress in the development of guidance strategies for the landing flare manoeuvre using tau‐based parameters

Abstract

PurposeTo provide a progress report into research conducted to establish guidelines for the development of guidance vision aids.Design/methodology/approachThe first stage of the research is to establish a coherent engineering basis for the methods of (visual) motion perception and control to inform the design of pilot aids that will support flight in degraded visual conditions, particularly when close to the ground. The next stage will then be to construct and evaluate synthetic displays that recover the visual cues necessary to allow flight in degraded visual conditions for a range of manoeuvres using the flight simulation facilities at the University of Liverpool (UoL). The research is guided by tau (time to contact) theory from the field of ecological psychology.FindingsThe closure of spatial gaps for a number of aircraft manoeuvres are presented in the tau domain. Analysis of the landing flare manoeuvre suggest that both a constant rate of change of tau strategy and an intrinsic tau‐guidance strategy will yield benefits in terms of touchdown descent rate if presented as display symbology.Research limitations/implicationsResults are presented from trials where only one professional pilot was used. Results from a wider population of pilots need to be analysed to ensure that the observed trends are generic.Practical implicationsThe reported results are being used in the next phase of the research project to inform the design of a guidance vision‐aid for the flare manoeuvre. These displays will be tested in flight simulation trials.Originality/valueThe research takes a theory of motion perception and applies it to aircraft guidance display technology.