FLIGHT ANALYSIS OF APPROACH AND LANDING GUIDANCE ELEMENTS OF HELIPORT LIGHTING PATTERNS

The flight phase of a series of tasks directed at the development of preliminary design criteria for approach and landing guidance elements of a heliport lighting configuration is presented. Helicopter pilots flew approaches to 8 experimental lighting and marking patterns. The patterns included a br...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: WATTERS,David L, Rollins,Wallace F, Frey,Roger B, Cavonius,Carl R
Format: Report
Language:English
Subjects:
AIRPORTS
APPROACH LIGHTS
AVIATION SAFETY
COMPUTER PROGRAMMING
FLIGHT PATHS
FLIGHT TESTING
HELICOPTERS
HUMAN FACTORS ENGINEERING
INSTRUMENTATION
LANDING AIDS
LANDING FIELDS
MARKER LIGHTS
PILOTS
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Summary:The flight phase of a series of tasks directed at the development of preliminary design criteria for approach and landing guidance elements of a heliport lighting configuration is presented. Helicopter pilots flew approaches to 8 experimental lighting and marking patterns. The patterns included a brightly colored panel presented during daylight approaches and 7 night patterns consisting of a single touchdown light or pairs of lights spaced 5, 15, or 80 feet apart oriented along the flight path or transverse to the flight path. Seventy-two measures of aircraft position, aircraft attitude and pilot control movement were analyzed in order to identify measures sensitive to changes in lighting configuration, but insensitive to individual pilot technique. Those measures which successfully discriminated among different lighting conditions were measures of deviation from a generally accepted standard (e. g., a straight flight path during approach) as opposed to measures which reflect individual pilot technique. The vast majority of the recorded measures (particularly pilot control movement) reflected inter-pilot differences in technique, since individual pilots display great consistency when repeating the same pattern.