PILOTED SIMULATOR INVESTIGATION OF CATEGORY-A CIVIL ROTORCRAFT TERMINAL AREA COCKPIT DISPLAYS

A piloted simulation experiment was conducted in the NASA Ames Researc h Center Vertical Motion Simulator as a preliminary investigation of t he use of integrated cockpit displays in terminal area operations for Category A civil rotorcraft. Category A is the transport category of r otorcraft which are required to be able to recover from an engine fail ure and continue flying. A UH-60 Black Hawk model was used for the sim ulation, with modifications made to the power available to simulate a civil rotorcraft. Hovering backups were flown from a confined area, ra ised vertiport site to a takeoff decision point (TDP), followed by nor mal flyout. Pilots flew the task with the standard Black Hawk instrume nt set or with one of two integrated formats presented on a color, pan el-mounted display. Engine failures were randomly inserted slightly be fore and slightly after the TDP. The pilot was instructed to make a vi sual landback to the pad when an engine failed prior to reaching the T DP and to continue the flyout when an engine failed after passing thro ugh the TDP. Weather conditions were varied from calm, clear condition s to low visibility and ceilings, with crosswinds and turbulence. Eval uations were conducted with seven pilots. Objective and subjective dat a describing task performance and pilot workload were collected. It wa s hypothesized that even without the benefit of display assistance, pi lots would achieve better performance handling an engine failure by us ing integrated displays during the ah-engines-operating back up phase prior to the engine failure occurring. As expected, the pilots were ab le to maintain more precise night path control during the backup with the integrated display. This precise control, in turn, placed the pilo t in a better situation from which to handle an engine failure. Pilot recognition of the TDP location was also highly improved with an integ rated display. Emergency landbacks, on runs using the integrated displ ay during the backup portion, were all performed within the specified tolerances. Some of the landbacks using the standard instrument set, h owever, exceeded the adequate performance parameters. Cooper-Harper Ha ndling Qualities Ratings confirmed that pilot workload was reduced and pilots were able to fly more consistently within the desired performa nce parameters with the integrated display than with the standard inst ruments and visual cues.