Rotorcraft Safety: A Simulator-based Training Perspective

Training has the potential to inject a “safety vaccination” into the rotorcraft community by reducing the number of accidents. The term training should not be intended only in a strict sense, i.e., as pilot technical skills training, but more broadly as risk avoidance and safety culture training. As in the case of vaccination, where immunity is...

Design and Evaluation of a Constraint-Based Head-Up Display for Helicopter Obstacle Avoidance During Forward Flight

This paper aims to reveal the effect of different display design principles in the helicopter domain. Two different obstacle avoidance support displays are evaluated during low-altitude, forward helicopter flight: a baseline Head-Up Display (HUD) is complemented either by a conventional advisory display, or a constraint-based display inspired by...

Pilot Model Development and Human Manual Control Considerations for Helicopter Hover Displays

Head-down hover displays and instrument panels theoretically provide all necessary 2ight data information to control low-speed helicopter manoeuvring. However, past experiments have shown that head-down displays can incur high workload, control instability, and even loss of control when used as the sole 2ight data source. This paper...

Investigation of the effects of autorotative flare index variation on helicopter flight dynamics in autorotation

Autorotation is a flight condition whereby the engine of a helicopter is no longer supplying power to the main rotor system, which is driven solely by the upward flow of the air moving through the rotor. For helicopters, autorotation is a common emergency procedure performed by pilots to safely land the vehicle in the event of a power failure...

Effectiveness of a Computer-Based Helicopter Trainer for Initial Hover Training

Today, simulators are achieving levels of complexity and cost that are comparable to those of the aircraft they should replace. For this reason, questions have been raised, in both the technical and training communities, on the required level of simulation 1delity for effective pilot training. Computer Based Trainers (CBTs) are not currently...

Eigenmode Distortion as a Novel Criterion for Motion Cueing Fidelity in Rotorcraft Flight Simulation

Eigenmode distortion (EMD) is a novel methodology developed to study the degradation of perceived vehicle dynamics as a result of motion cueing algorithms (MCA’s) applied in rotorcraft 2ight simulators. This paper brie2y introduces EMD and subsequently describes its application in a pilot-in-the-loop experiment conducted on the SIMONA Research...

The use of pilot ratings in rotorcraft flight simulation fidelity assessment

The fidelity of a rotorcraft flight simulator is influenced by many factors, such as the vehicle dynamic model and the motion cueing algorithm (MCA). To quantify the fidelity of a simulator objectively requires detailed knowledge of human pilot perception and control behaviour that is not yet available. As a consequence, subjective...