A Comparative Evaluation of a Pursuit Moving-Airplane Steering Display

An experiment was conducted using a flight simulator to determine the relative ease with which pilots can learn to use four types of airborne fire-control system steering displays. The four displays compared were 1) a moving-horizon display with a space-stabilized error dot, 2) a moving-horizon display with an aircraft-stabilized error dot, 3) a compensatory type moving-airplane display, and 4) a pursuit type moving-airplane display. Of the four displays, the moving-airplane types were found to yield significantly smaller firing errors and require less learning as compared to either moving-horizon type display. Furthermore, the pursuit type of moving-airplane display yielded learning performance and terminal performance error levels superior to any of the other displays.