Effect of different runway size on pilot performance during simulated night landing approaches.

Details

• Creators:
  Mertens, Henry W. ; Lewis, Mark F.
• Corporate Creators:
  Civil Aeromedical Institute
• Corporate Contributors:
  United States. Office of Aviation Medicine
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Air pilots
  • Approach
  • Landing
  • Visual perception
  • Depth perception
  • Distance perception
  • Airport runways
  • Flight simulators
  • Night vision
  • Human subject testing
  More +
• Publication/ Report Number:
  FAA-AM-81-6 ; DOT/FAA/AM-81/6
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Corporate Publisher:
  Civil Aerospace Medical Institute
• Abstract:
  In Experiment I, three pilots flew simulated approaches and landings in a fixed-base simulator with a computer-generated-image visual display. Practice approaches were flown with an 8,000-ft-long runway that was either 75, 150, or 300 ft wide; test approaches were to runways with widths of 75, 100, 150, 200, and 300 ft. In Experiment II, 40 pilots controlled the slant of a moving model runway during simulated night visual approaches. Five different models simulated runways from 100 to 300 ft wide and 3,000 to 9,000 ft long. ; As predicted, training on a wide runway in Experiment I lowered approach angle in approaches to narrower runways; a narrow practice runway also raised approach angles to wider runways. The magnitude of these practice effects increased as distance from runway threshold decreased. There was also a general tendency for approach angles to decrease as runway width decreased. The latter effect was corroborated in Experiment II; in addition, generated approach angles decreased with increasing runway length. Giving half the pilots information about runway size prior to each approach had no effect on responses. ; These findings add to the quantitative evidence of danger in night visual approaches due to visual illusions and large variability in the visual perception of approach angle.
• Format:
  PDF
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/21185/dot_21185_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 795.06 KB]
• Collection(s):
  FAA Civil Aerospace Medical Institute ; US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:15005a24d3cce98cff554d5e9a08e9f714711ef72816c08fd16b19629558a34e7b639ea6118b05dc144a686104eff780d9290708b4eb2094c3eb04a625912147