Examining Error Likelihood When Using Enhanced Vision Systems for Approach and Landing

Abstract

A flight simulator experiment simulating enhanced vision system approaches was conducted in which the dependent variable in question was the probability of large performance measure deviations, rather than the mean deviation of those measures. Prior work had established no mean deviation in performance measures, but the question of whether the enhanced vision system affected the probability of large errors was not answered. The results of the simulator study suggest that enhanced vision system approaches may not affect the probability of long error durations, but may reduce the probability of large error extents. While this appears to be a positive finding for enhanced vision approaches, it may suggest pilots are applying higher gain than strictly necessary in correcting for errors, which would raise concerns of unnecessarily increased workload. Such a concern is consistent with other work on enhanced vision system approaches.