Effects of Head Up Display Symbology Lag on Recovery from Inadvertent Instrument Meteorological Conditions: Performance Costs

Abstract : The past three decades of technological advances in U.S. Army aviation have provided the capability to fly nap-of-the-earth (NOE) missions at night. The technology that has enabled Army pilots to gain this operational advantage is the head-mounted illumination intensification device called the Night Vision Goggle (NVG) (Collins and Piccione, 1998). Further workload reduction efforts have led to the production of a head up display (HUD) for the Aviator's Night Vision knaging System (ANVIS), a current version of the NVG. This device superimposes flight symbology on one tube of the ANVIS so that no head movement is required to obtain flight information. It is believed that this addition has helped decrease aviator workload during flight. However, past research has shown that some aviators actually experience more severe episodes of spatial disorientation while using the HUD (Durnford et al., 1995).