Utility of the Vertical Contact Analog Display for Carrier Landings: A Diagnostic Evaluation.

摘要

The report describes an experiment designed to provide a diagnostic evaluation of the VCAD (vertical contact analog display) within a carrier-landing context. The design provided both an estimate of error associated with the performance of a carrier landing under full-scale simulation conditions with the VCAD and a means for partitioning this error into components due to: 'Display Resolution,' 'Temporal Loading,'and 'Control Complexity.'Subjects were trained to an asymptotic level on each of five experimental conditions and their asymptotic performance (attitude and position errors) compared across conditions. The results showed that roll,pitch,and heading deviations could be detected to an accuracy of 0.5degree on the VCAD and that attitude control,in general,was unaffected by Temporal Loading. Lateral control with the VCAD was found to be somewhat more precise than that exhibited during actual carrier landings. The results of the variance partitioning showed that the main contributor to lateral error was Control Complexity and that Display Resolution and Temporal Loading together contributed little error. It was concluded that lateral error could not be reduced significantly by modifying the VCAD format. Vertical error was maintained with about the same precision as that found for actual carrier landings. However,both Display Resolution and Temporal Loading were found to be large and roughly equivalent contrigutors to vertical error. This finding led to the conclusion that vertical control is the weakest aspect of performance with the present VCAD configuration and has the greatest potential for improvement through display modification. (Author)