Between 1959 and 2016, loss-of-control in-flight (LOC-I) was the largest contributor to commercial aviation fatalities. In response to this issue, the Commercial Aviation Safety Team recommended that technologies to improve flight-crew awareness of energy state be developed and tested to mitigate the LOC-I risk. In this paper, a methodology for evaluating these tech-nologies is presented and demonstrated through a human-in-the-loop (HITL) simulation experiment designed to determine angle-of-attack (AOA) indicator effectiveness. The methodology includes various LOC-I scenarios for testing and objective metrics. The HITL experiment was implemented using a B737-800 Level D simulator and 16 type-rated pilot participants. The results of the experiment were analyzed to determine whether a manufacturer optional AOA indicator or a prototype standalone indicator improved pilot performance compared to a baseline flight deck during six types of potential LOC-I scenarios. The initial analysis pre-sented in this paper shows that the AOA display on the flight deck significantly affects the stick shaker margin in scenarios when maximum aircraft performance is required or an air data system failure occurs. No effects on performance were found in surprise upset scenarios. Additional studies are needed to determine the effectiveness of AOA indicators in other airplane types and to explore the effect of training.
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