Abstract:
Shipboard operations present a unique set of challenges to the pilot-vehicle system. This work addresses problems specific to piloted rotorcraft in the simulated shipboard environment, namely cueing and ship motion, and represents the completion of a three-year effort focused on fixed-base, pilot-in-the-loop rotorcraft flight simulations. Instructors from the United States Naval Test Pilot School, with extensive operational and test experience, participated in the study. Two cueing sets, one for the approach task and another for the hover task, were developed in order to provide intuitive guidance of cyclic and collective inputs. Data were gathered for each task with the cueing system both on and off. The evaluation criteria used to determine the usefulness of the provided cueing were based on pilot workload assessment, profile performance and inceptor activity. The approach task cueing provides the pilot with a preset approach profile defined by altitude and airspeed cueing, while the hover task cueing provides the pilot with a top-down view of helicopter position over the landing spot and a representation of the vehicle’s acceleration vector. Different control response types were assessed, as well as different ship motion intensities. Both tasks show that use of the developed cues allows pilots to achieve greater precision with less overall workload when compared to task performance without cueing available.