Evaluating landing aids to support helicopter/ship testing and operations

The pilot effort involved in a helicopter ship landing is a function of the helicopter flying qualities, the ship airwake and associated turbulence, ship motion, ship visual landing aids, and shipboard obstructions. There are no visual landing aids (VLA) on USA surface combatant ships to aid the pilot in anticipating a ship flight deck quiescent period. The Landing Period Designator (LPD) was designed to provide ship motion cues to the pilot to assist him/her in anticipating ship deck quiescent periods that result in acceptable conditions for a shipboard landing. An analytic evaluation of the LPD concept was conducted at the NAVAIR Manned Flight Simulator (MFS) as a buildup prior to at-sea testing which is currently being scheduled. The NAVAIR MFS LPD data were compared to similar data from a RNAS Culdrose UK simulation conducted using similar analytic ship motion conditions. This paper reviews the manned flight simulation evaluations of the analytic landing period designator.