Touch screen technology in flight deck, how far is it helpful?

Introduction of touch screen technology in the flight deck is getting considerable attention. Various flight deck tasks can be simplified and performed much more easily by the application of touch screen technology. The touch screen technology would be helpful in reducing flight deck workload and ensuring safety especially by reducing the head down scan time when used on the flight display. In consumer products, several researchers have proved that task completion times with touch screen devices will be lower when compared to other input devices. In this research paper, I will review earlier research of touch screen technology in consumer products involved in determining the response times (selection times), error rates, and impact of loss of sensory feedback and discuss how the research is applicable to flight deck. I have described my current study where I am planning to evaluate the task completion times of various piloting tasks with touch screen interfaces and model the selection times with human performance model Fitts´ law to compare the results obtained from the model with the manual results and extrapolate for evaluating future touch screen interfaces.