Perspective Displays and Frame-of-Reference: Their Interdependence to RealizePerformance Advantages over Planar Displays in a Terminal Area Navigation Task

摘要

The most difficult and perhaps the most dangerous aspect of flight is approachingand completing a safe return to the earth. This danger of approach and landing is apparent from the accident ratio; while compromising only 3% of total flight time, landing and approach account for 47% of total aircraft accidents (O' Hare Roscoe, 1990). A review of data compiled by NASA via the Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) accomplished by Williams, Tham and Wickens (1992) revealed that geographic disorientation can be a major factor in such mishaps. As a case in point, consider the crash of TWA flt. 514 in 1975, where the aircraft crashed into a mountain near Dulles airport as a result of the crew misinterpreting the vertical terrain features with respect to the approach path and ground features. Due to the potentially lethal prospects of terrain proximal flight, particular attention has been given to the design and implementation of different display formats in order to give pilots a better method of acquiring awareness of surroundings and situations important to their flight. Of course, redesign and implementation of this navigational information is only possible by first examining some of the problems with traditional methods of presenting such information.