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National Aeronautics andSpace AdministrationLangley Research CenterHampton, Virginia 23681-0001

804 864-3293

NF179 - May 1993

Helping Pilots See Through the ‘Soup’Langley Concepts Will Help Reduce Terminal Delays

NASA is studying advanced concepts that willallow airline pilots to fly and land safely in verylow-visibility conditions, thereby increasing thenumber of flights in poor weather, reducingterminal delays, and cutting costs for the airline

industry and the flying public.An extension of the same technology may allowsafe and efficient “windowless” cockpits for pilotsof advanced U. S. supersonic transports after theturn of the century. Eliminating forward-lookingwindows and replacing them with “syntheticvision” could dramatically reduce operating costs.

Both applications will makeuse of weather-penetratingsensors and innovative, pilot-friendly cockpit displays.

Program is government-industry effortCandidate sensor/displayconcepts and requirementsare being developed atNASA Langley ResearchCenter, Hampton, Va. andNASA Ames ResearchCenter, Mountain View,

Calif. in cooperation with the FAA and industry.Industry will be largely responsible for developingthe technology to implement these concepts inresponse to airline needs. Sensor concepts being examined now will allowpilots to see objects – including the runway andother aircraft – through fog, heavy rain, and snow,which are usually to blame for flight cancellationsand airport closings. Sensor concepts include aforward-looking infrared system that wouldprovide heat-related images from objects ahead of the airliner. This concept would be used primarilyat night and under light fog and haze conditions.

Another sensor concept would produce imagesusing a passive camera or active radar operating atmillimeter wave frequencies – frequencies whichhave demonstrated potential for penetrating heavyfog. Each concept has its advantages anddisadvantages. The solution may be toelectronically fuse the image data from severalsensors for a piercing, yet realistic, view of thescene ahead.

Future subsonic flight decks are likely to have “enhanced vision” for a “situation-at-a-glance” advantage during low-

visibility operations. Head-up displays (HUDs) would displayessential information during critical phases of flight on atransparent screen between the pilots and the forward cockpit window. In advanced subsonic transports, HUDs are likelyto be accompanied by additional upgrades of the cockpit likethe large-screen, flat-panel displays illustrated here.

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Computer-painted scenes may help pilots fly “blind.” Thissynthetic vision display presents a high-fidelity, color, 3-D pictorial image overlaid with helpful symbols.

Innovative, pilot-friendly cockpit displaysFuture display concepts under test at Langley

include integrated, pictorial displays with “real-world” formats — possibly with stereo vision —presented on large panoramic screens. Forexample, one “real-world” display format beingstudied at Langley presents guidance informationin the form of a “pathway-in-the-sky” (see above).These features contribute to giving a pilot a“situation at a glance” advantage. ‘Enhanced vision’ for subsoniccommmercial transportsFor the nearer-term application, called “enhancedvision,” airline pilots will likely have a “head-up”display (HUD), through which they will view asensor-derived scene complete with superimposedaiding symbology (see p. 1). Together, they willgive the pilot precise landing guidance. The HUD would supplement the head-downprimary displays by providing the pilot withessential information during critical phases of flight(particularly, landing and takeoff) on a transparentscreen between himself and the forward cockpitwindow. This concept would allow the pilot to see

through the window at the same time. Enhancedvision technology could be available for retrofit ontoday’s airliners before the end of the decade.In the application of enhanced vision to newsubsonic transports, the HUD is likely to be accompanied by additional upgrades of the cockpit.Here, large-screen flat-panel display technologymay enable the new pictorial display concepts to be

employed for head-down displays as well. Flat-panel displays promise to extend the advantages of existing computer-driven cathode ray tube (CRT)displays by being lighter, more reliable, andproviding the larger screen sizes required bypictorial display concepts – without incurring thebulk, weight, and depth-behind-panel penalties that

the use of large CRTs would entail.‘Synthetic vision’ would allow windowlesssupersonic transportsFor the farther-term supersonic transportapplication, pilots will likely have full-time“synthetic vision” with no forward windows at all.And, of course, without forward windows, theywill not have head-up displays. As presentlyenvisioned, computers will paint a syntheticpicture, derived from sensors and storedgeographic data bases, on two head-down or“virtual window” panoramic displays that willserve both pilot and copilot – or each pilot mightwear a lightweight helmet-mounted display thatsenses which direction the pilot is looking toprovide a wider field-of-view.In a synthetic vision experiment at Langley, 14commercial airline pilots “flew” a one-personcockpit simulator to help evaluate the benefits of these new concepts and technologies. On thesimulator’s 15-inch high by 40-inch (38 by 102cm) wide screen was displayed a color, pictorial

scene representing a 70 degree field of view.Overlaid were “pathway-in-the-sky” symbols tohelp guide the pilots over curved, descending flightpaths for precise approach and landings. The pilots’demanding flight task was representative of future

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requirements forprecision approach toclosely-spaced parallelrunways, whileremaining aware of other traffic in theterminal area. Thepilots judged thepictorial display

concepts easier to flythan the flight systemthey are flying todayand that the pictorialconcepts providedbetter situationawareness (see right). Synthetic vision andwindowless cockpitsare at early stages of evaluation by NASAand industry for a

possible next generation High-Speed CivilTransport (HSCT). Synthetic vision capabilitywould save weight by avoiding the droop nose of the British-French Concorde and by reducing fuelreserves. The Concorde’s nose swings down attakeoff and landing for pilot visibility. Fuelreserves could be significantly less in an aircraftwith all-weather, all-site takeoff and landingcapability. Studies indicate that a fixed-nose design wouldtrim up to 1,500 - 2,500 pounds (675 - 1, 125 kg)from the structuralweight of a supersonictransport and eliminateseveral times thatweight in additionalfuel required for thedroop-nosemechanism. Further, afixed-nose design (withsynthetic vision) wouldallow for a longer nosewith reduced drag. Intotal, an all-weather,

all-site supersonictransport with fixednose and syntheticvision could trim up to40,000 pounds (18,000kg) of reserve fuel,resulting in asignificant savings inoperating costs.

 A NASA research technician operates a rapidlyreconfigurable flight display simulator. Known as the Visual Imaging Simulator Transport Aircraft Systems (VISTAS), thesimulator allows researchers to compare conventional flight displays with wide field-of-view, integrated, pictorial displayconcepts.

Technology being developed by NASA and others to help pilots see through fog and heavy rain may be extended to doaway with forward cockpit windows altogether on thecountry’s first supersonic transport.