Kinesthetic-Tactual Information Presentations-Inflight Studies

A kinesthetic-tactual compensatory display for presenting critical vehicular control information has undergone preliminary inflight testing with novice pilots. The efficacy of this presentation, as compared with two types of visual displays, was evaluated in both a highly structured approach and landing task and a less structured task involving tight turns about a point. The displayed quantity was the direct or indirect deviation(αD-α) in angle of attack from a desired value αD. In both tasks, direct display of (αD α) resulted in the least errors. In the former task, the performance with the tactual display was comparable to that obtained using a direct visual display of (αD /spl alph/). In the latter, a significant (p < 0.01) reduction in - tracking error (55 percent) was obtained using the tactual display along with decreased maximum altitude variations (51 percent) and decreased speed variations (33 percent). It appears that such a display offers considerable potential for inflight use.