The Effect of Roll-Stabilized Sensor Information on Pilot Performance

Abstract

A study of the night vision sensor systems on helicopters was conducted at the flight simulation facilities at Sikorsky Aircraft. The study was concerned with determining possible pilot performance improvements with the sensor system being roll-stabilized with respect to the airframe as opposed to it being non-roll-stabilized. A six-pilot × two-sensor factorial experiment was designed and data were collected with respect to nine response variables. The results of the statistical analysis performed on the data were mixed in terms of the superiority of one sensor design over the other. The power collective input was significantly greater for the roll-stabilized design. However, the pilots also flew faster and made fewer errors, though the differences were not significant. One reason for such results might be that the pilots were less familiar with the roll-stabilized design, as it is a more recent technology.