Field Study Determination of Human Acuity Criteria, Volume 1 - Pilot Object Detection Survey

XVS performance of object detection must satisfy the requirements of manufacturers, regulatory authorities, and perhaps most importantly, the users who will rely on this system to accomplish safe transport operations. For successful certification of the High Speed Civil Transport (HSCT), the total XVS/object detection/side window/pilot system will need to demonstrate an equivalent level of safety and visibility to that of existing pilot-window combination. To ascertain what pilots might expect from an external vision system, potential
users were approached to elicit expectations of their own object detection capabilities. Two pilot surveys were conducted; the first with FAA (ACO and AEG) pilots, and Douglas Aircraft Experimental and Training pilots. A second survey was conducted with a group of Texas Air National Guard F-16 pilots from
the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, most of who are also experienced commercial pilots with major airlines. Both groups were asked to estimate the distance they would "expect" to be able to visually detect and identify airborne targets given visibility out conventional forward looking windows and optimum
visual conditions. Estimates were made given clear weather, day and night VFR conditions during a level approach phase. Airborne targets consisted of Transport and General Aviation Category aircraft traveling directly across and directly towards respondent’s flight path. Traffic was acknowledged as a result of
ATC notifying their aircraft of specific traffic and as a result of normal pilot-notflying external vision scan. Of the 40 FAA and DAC pilots, most expressed some reservation in providing an absolute distance at which a pilot could detect traffic. This was due to the many factors that impact whether or not traffic is detected in
a dynamic operational environment. Therefore, the distances provided by the pilots surveyed were offered as optimistic estimates of what their "expectations" would be for pilot object detection, given optimum visual and target conditions.