ABSTRACT

Eight 757 commercial airline captains flew 22 approaches using the Reno Sparks 16R Visual Arrival simulated Cat IIIa conditions. Approaches were flown using a synthetic vision display that was chosen as an advanced aviation display to evaluate four tunnel or pathway concepts and compared their efficacy to a baseline condition without a tunnel. Two new “dynamic” tunnel concepts were developed and evaluated in addition to both a minimal and box tunnel concept. The results showed that the tunnel concepts significantly improved pilot performance and situation awareness and lowered workload compared to the baseline condition. The dynamic tunnel concepts were found to be the best candidates for advanced aviation displays. These results are discussed with implications for display design and future research.