Assessing impact of dual sensor enhanced flight vision systems on departure performance
Synthetic Vision (SV) and Enhanced Flight Vision Systems (EFVS) may serve as game changing technologies to meet the challenges of the Next Generation Air Transportation System and the envisioned Equivalent Visual Operations (EVO) concept that is, the ability to achieve the safety and operational tempos of current day Visual Flight Rules operations irrespective of the weather and visibility conditions. One significant obstacle lies in the definition of required equipage on the aircraft and on the airport to enable the EVO concept objective. A motion base simulator experiment was conducted to evaluate the operational feasibility and pilot workload of conducting departures and approaches on runways without centerline lighting in visibility as low as 300 feet runway visual range (RVR) by use of onboard vision system technologies on a Head Up Display (HUD) without need or reliance on natural vision. Twelve crews evaluated two methods of combining dual sensor (millimeter wave radar and forward looking infrared) EFVS imagery on pilot flying and pilot monitoring HUDs. In addition, the impact of adding SV to the dual sensor EFVS imagery on crew flight performance and workload was assessed. Using EFVS concepts during 300 RVR terminal operations on runways without centerline lighting appears feasible as all EFVS concepts had equivalent (or better) departure performance and landing rollout performance, without any workload penalty, than those flown with a conventional HUD to runways having centerline lighting. Adding SV imagery to EFVS concepts provided situation awareness improvements but no discernible improvements in flight path maintenance.
SPIE Defense Security