Citation

in 't Veld AC, Mulder M, van Paassen MMR, Clarke JPB. Int. J. Aviat. Psychol. 2009; 19(3): 287-308.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/10508410902983938

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Previous research on aircraft noise abatement has resulted in some promising flight procedures to mitigate noise impact, such as the three-degree decelerating approach (TDDA). A problem with decelerating approaches, however, is that they typically lead to increased spacing, which in turn results in a significant reduction of runway landing capacity. A possible solution to this problem might be to delegate the task of separating the aircraft during the approach to the pilot. To aid the pilot, an algorithm has been developed that predicts the trajectory of the preceding aircraft and optimizes the flap schedule based on this prediction. Offline simulations indicate that using this system runway throughput numbers of up to 98% of the capacity of a conventional instrument landing system (ILS) approach can be achieved (Ren & Clarke, 2003). To assess practical implementation issues and to investigate pilot appreciation, a piloted experiment was conducted, for which a pilot support interface has been developed that presents the future separation information in an intuitive fashion. The experiment showed that it is indeed possible for pilots to perform the spacing task while flying a TDDA. The pilot support interface significantly reduces pilot workload when compared to a baseline display. Also the effects of off-nominal lead pilot behavior on pilot performance are reduced by the use of online flap schedule optimization and separation prediction.