Design and Evaluation of a Wind Shear Indication System for Transport Aircraft

Abstract

Wind shear can be a serious hazard for transport aircraft operation on take-off and landing, thus threatening flight safety. A questionnaire campaign concerning airline pilot's experiences and views of the problem provided basic information for the design of a wind shear indication system for manual flight. Particular attention was given to human factors design requirements, especially in the display layout. In a flight simulator experiment, a human factors-oriented display version and a flight mechanics-oriented display version were evaluted, in relation to the conventional cockpit instrumentation. Twelve airline pilots performed up to 45 landing approaches under wind shear conditions with the different display versions. Results are based on flight data, pilot visual scan behaviour and judgement data. The human factors-oriented version showed advantages over the flight mechanics display version and conventional instrumentation.