The cognitive ecology of tunnel-in-the-sky displays

In order to meet future demands on economy and noise production, aircraft will have to be able to fly curved approaches to the landing. Tunnel-in-the-sky displays have been proposed as an aid to achieve this. This paper compares the conventional aircraft instrumentation and Tunnel-in-the-sky representations to the principles of Ecological Interface Design. It appears that, although Tunnel-in-the-sky displays provide better information about function and goal achievement at different abstraction levels for the current goals in the approach to landing, they cannot be considered ecological displays for future settings, when time and energy management are likely to be added to the pilot’s task.