Attitude Indicator Design in Primary Flight Display: Revisiting an Old Issue With Current Technology

Abstract

Objective:The experiments investigated the "old issue" of the attitude indicator's moving-horizon versus moving-aircraft format with current primary flight display technology. Of interest was whether the effects found in earlier studies, favoring the moving-aircraft format, could be replicated with most recent technology including extended horizon displays, which depict the artificial horizon extended over the whole screen with overlaying speed and altitude scales (e.g., B787).Background: Although the moving-horizon format represents the standard approach in Western aviation, human factors research from the 1950s to the 1970s with round electromechanical instruments favored the moving-aircraft format with respect to better support of flight-path tracking and unusual attitude recoveries. However, recent studies using laboratory displays more similar to modern primary flight displays provided inconsistent results. This led to the assumption that the display's design is a moderating factor of those effects.Method: Thirty-two novices and 13 pilots flew several tracking and recovery tasks in a PC-based simulator equipped with moving-horizon and moving-aircraft formats in classic and extended horizon design. Results:The data show that the previous effects favoring a moving-aircraft format of displaying bank information can be replicated with current primary flight display designs. However, the extended horizon design seems to reduce this effect, at least for pilots. Conclusion:The results suggest reconsidering the format of the attitude indicator at least for new applications, such as control of remotely piloted aircraft.

Expectation Causes Misperception of the Attitude Indicator in Nonpilots: A Fixed-Base Simulator Experiment

“…Our Baseline condition, which did not involve a flying task to induce an expectation, produced an RRE rate of 6.7%. This is somewhat lower, but still in the same order of magnitude as the 15%–20% found in nonpilots in other studies (Ince et al., 1975; Müller et al., 2018). In contrast, the error rates in the Level (i.e., 30%) and Opposite conditions (i.e., 75%) were, respectively, 4.5 and 11.2 times higher than in the Baseline condition.…”

“…This can lead to a roll control input towards the incorrect side, which is known as a roll reversal error (RRE). In fixed-based simulators, there was an RRE incidence of 3.9% to 8.7% for pilots (Beringer, Williges, & Roscoe, 1975; Müller, Sadovitch, & Manzey, 2018). Pilots performed better in in-flight experiments (1.5%–3.1%; Beringer et al., 1975; Hasbrook & Rasmussen, 1973), although these error rates are still high from a safety perspective.…”

“…Pilots performed better in in-flight experiments (1.5%–3.1%; Beringer et al., 1975; Hasbrook & Rasmussen, 1973), although these error rates are still high from a safety perspective. Nonpilots perform typically worse than pilots, both in fixed-base simulators (15%–20% RREs; Ince, Williges, & Roscoe, 1975; Müller et al., 2018) and in-flight (21.9%; Roscoe & Williges, 1975).…”

Attitude Indicator Format

“…More recent research has replicated these findings for the typical AIs integrated in the primary flight displays (PFD) of today's glass cockpits (Ding & Proctor, 2017;Müller, Sadovitch, & Manzey, 2018). Furthermore, there is evidence that the results gained with flight novices can also be generalized to experienced pilots (Müller et al, 2018;Ponomarenko, Lapa, & Lemeshchenko, 1990).…”

Leans Illusion in Hexapod Simulator Facilitates Erroneous Responses to Artificial Horizon in Airline Pilots

“…This simulated an in-flight situation of a subthreshold roll to a bank angle. The error rate was expected to be around 4.5%-8.7% based on studies in fixed-base simulators (Beringer et al, 1975;Müller et al, 2018). 3.…”