Pilot Maneuver Choice and Workload in Free Flight

Abstract

Two experiments examined pilots' maneuver choice and visual workload in a free-flight simulation. In Experiment 1, 12 pilots flew a high-fidelity flight simulator with a cockpit display of traffic information and maneuvered to avoid traffic in a simulated free-flight environment. Pilots' choices reflected a preference to make vertical rather than lateral avoidance maneuvers and to climb rather than descend. Pilots avoided both complex maneuvers and airspeed maneuvers. The data were modeled in terms of how pilots traded off factors related to safety, efficiency, mental effort, and prior habits. In Experiment 2, 10 pilots flew the same maneuvers as the pilots in Experiment 1 but followed ATC instructions rather than using the CDTI. The CDTI in Experiment 1 occupied 25% of the pilots' visual attention. A comparison of scanning with Experiment 2 suggested that the CDTI pulled visual attention away from the outside world, but this attention diversion did not leave pilots vulnerable to missing traffic not annunciated on the CDTI. Actual or potential applications of the results include understanding the safety implications of presenting traffic displays in the cockpit, and the impact of pilot maneuver preferences on airspace procedures.

Design, Delivery, and Evaluation of Training Systems

“…Flight simulation has been a front-runner in training and evaluation technology, covering such topics as adaptive decision making (e.g., Gillan, 2003), discrimination, performance (Aiba et al, 2002), response time (Harris and Khan, 2003), performance under workload (Wickens et al, 2002), and team issues (Prince and Jentsch, 2001). Driving simulators, originally used primarily for evaluation and assessment for factors such as fatigue and age effects, have begun to explore driving training.…”

Dual-Task Performance Consequences of Imperfect Alerting Associated With a Cockpit Display of Traffic Information

“…The context for our evaluation of these four factors is the cockpit display of traffic information (CDTI), a system proposed within future cockpits to provide pilots with a traffic display that is partially redundant with the air traffic controller's display and may, in some future airspace plans, allow pilots to monitor their course for conflicts and to initiate the choice to make route changes (Johnson, Battiste, & Bochow, 1999;Thomas & Wickens, 2005;Wickens, Helleberg, & Xu, 2002;Wickens, Goh, Helleberg, Horrey, & Talleur, 2003). Indeed, it has been proposed that such systems be coupled with discrete alerts (Thomas & Rantanen, 2006;Xu et al, 2007), paralleling similar alerting systems for air traffic control (Metzger & Parasuraman, 2005) and for more emergency airborne conflicts (the Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System [TCAS]).…”

Effects of Data-Link Modality and Display Redundancy on Pilot Performance: An Attentional Perspective

“…This preemption factor might offset some of the proposed benefits for an auditory display based upon multiple resources, in so far as the ongoing continuous visual task is concerned, and hence favor the proposed visual data link display, particularly given that data link is employed for communications, a lower priority task in the pilot's standard "aviate, navigate, communicate" task hierarchy (Schutte & Trujillo, 1996;Wickens, Helleberg, & Xu, 2002). Furthermore, given the analysis of Wickens and Liu (1988) because both the aviate and navigate tasks (higher priority) are visual these are most likely to be preempted by the auditory format of a data link message.…”