Improving the Interpretability of an Aircraft Attitude Indicator.
Abstract
Two display types and four aircraft size ratios were investigated in this thesis to determine their effect on attitude display interpretability. The two display designs used were an outside-in (moving plane) and an inside-out (moving horizon) display. The four aircraft symbol lengths were measured relative to the size of the artificial horizon (33 percent, 50 percent, 67 percent, 100 percent). Twenty flight naive subjects were tested in two phases with both display types and all four size ratios. The first phase tested subjects' reaction to the sudden awareness of a change in attitude. The dependent variables measured, reaction time and error rate, indicated a preference for the outside-in display. The small size ratio was significantly better than the larger ones with reaction time as the dependent variable. A significant difference between sizes was not the case when the dependent variable error rate was measured. The second phase consisted of a dynamic flying task on an Apple PC computer. The dependent measures were the root mean square (RMS) error due to roll and the RMS error due to pitch. A significant difference in display types, favoring the outside-in type, was found with the RMS error due to roll as the dependent measure. No significant differences were found when the RMS error due to pitch was used as the dependent measure. Sizes did, however, approach significance in this case.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1986
- Accession Number
- ADA166329
Entities
People
- Mark A. Dipadua
Organizations
- Air Force Institute of Technology