Simulation evaluation of display/FLIR concepts for low-altitude, terrain-following helicopter operations

Trials were run on a six degree of freedom combat helicopter simulator to evaluate head-down displays with integrated FLIR imagery for terrain-following, course-steering, and transition to approach and hover helicopter pilot tasks. Three display formats were tested, providing varying levels of symbology for, e.g., the flight path angle, pitch-attitude data, vertical speed, altitude, etc. The pilots were also furnished flight director guidance, i.e., terrain-following, course steering, airspeed hold, and approach to hover. All the displays permitted the pilots to fly satisfactory mission in the CGI scenarios. The results revealed that the pilots preferred a nonconformal FLIR display superposition.