Development of Highway-in-the-Sky Displays for Flight-Path Guidance: History,Performance Results,Guidelines

Abstract

Highway-in-the-sky and pathway-format displays have received considerable attention in the research community, and several applications have been examined for transport and attack aircraft. Only recently have these display formats received serious attention for use in General Aviation (GA), and several have been flown in GA aircraft, some without the benefit of rigorous human factors evaluations during the design phase. This paper addresses three areas of interest: First, the origins and subsequent development of pathway-style displays and related research; second, results of some recent studies in which format variations were compared for their efficacy, as indicated by both training and end performance data; and third, general guidelines that may be useful to both designers and certifiers. Recommendations are provided regarding pictorial formats, color, display field-of-view, command-guidance indicators, and need for auxiliary quantitative error indicators.

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