Evaluation of a Peripherally-Located Instrument Landing Display with High-Order Control of a Non-Linear Approach and Landing

Abstract

We compared the precision of simulated-fixed wing aircraft landing approaches with two different head-up display (HUD) formats: a) the MIL-STD-1787B Instrument Landing System and b) a virtual peripherally-located optical flow ILS HUD. Within each display condition we compared a three second quickened display to a real time non-quickened display. Non-pilot participants used simplified controls to guide a landing simulation under night conditions with extremely poor visibility using Instrument Flight Rules (IFR). Participants followed a non-linear flight and approach path under the two display and quickening conditions. While quickening was found to have no significant effect, the peripheral optical flow ILS afforded greater overall precision in flight path control. The findings suggest an increased ability to extract rate-of-change information from the peripheral optical flow ILS affording improved spatial orientation.