Engineering topics

Delzell, Susanne

Publications and source records attributed to Delzell, Susanne.

3 records

NASA NTRS2003

Development and Demonstration of a Prototype Free Flight Cockpit Display of Traffic Information

Two versions of a prototype Free Flight cockpit situational display (Basic and Enhanced) were examined in a simulation at the NASA Ames Research Center. Both displays presented a display of traffic out to a range of 120 NM, and an alert when the automation detected a substantial danger of losing separation with another aircraft. The task for the crews was to detect and resolve threats to separation posed by intruder aircraft. An Enhanced version of the display was also examined. It incorporated two additional conflict alerting levels and tools to aid in trajectory prediction and path planning. Ten crews from a major airline participated in the study. Performance analyses and pilot debriefings showed that the Enhanced display was preferred, and that minimal separation between the intruder and the ownship was larger with the Enhanced display. In addition, the additional information on the Enhanced display did not lead crews to engage in more maneuvering. Instead an opposite trend was indicated. Finally, crews using the Enhanced display responded more proactively, tending to resolve alerts earlier.

Johnson, Walter W.↗

NASA NTRS1993

Crew performance and communication: Performing a terrain navigation task

A study was conducted to examine the map and route cues pilots use while navigating under controlled, but realistic, nap-of-the-earth (NOE) flight conditions. US Army helicopter flight crews were presented a map and route overlay and asked to perform normal mission planning. They then viewed a video-recording of the out-the-window scene during low-level flights, without the route overlay, and were asked periodically to locate their current position on the map. The pilots and navigators were asked to communicate normally during the planning and flight phases. During each flight the navigator's response time, accuracy, and subjective workload were assessed. Post-flight NASA-TLX workload ratings were collected. No main effect of map orientation (north-up vs. track-up) was found for errors or response times on any of the tasks evaluated. Navigators in the north-up group rated their workload lower than those in the track-up group.

Battiste, Vernol↗

NASA NTRS1993

Navigational demands of low-level helicopter flight

The present study was designed to assess the verbal references to map, terrain, direction, and position, that navigators and pilots communicate during a simulated low-level flight. Two-person crews were asked to communicate normally while negotiating six short flight missions that varied widely in regard to map-terrain characteristics. Half of the crews performed the exercises with fixed, north-up maps and the other half used movable maps that were adjusted to maintain a track-up correspondence to the flight route. An analysis was performed to compare differences in crew communication patterns between map orientations, characteristics, and navigation tasks. The results showed differences in the frequency of communication across categories for map characteristics but not for map orientations or tasks. A difference in the proportion of communications between pilot and navigator occurred when crew were lost. Pilots communicated more than navigators when crews were lost and the reverse was true when crews were not lost. The results support and extend findings from a distance error performance analysis performed on the same flight missions.

Delzell, Susanne↗