The design and evaluation of a traffic situation display for a SATS self controlled area

Graphical, interactive, and intelligent displays will be an integral part of the future of aviation cockpits. NASA's vision for a national small airport transportation system based on self controlled areas is a good test case for the challenge of designing avionics functionality to support pilots in performing new flight procedures - flight procedures that have the potential of improving the efficiency of our National Airspace System. The authors developed and evaluated a primary flight display and traffic situation display that includes elements of synthetic vision, highway-in-the-sky, conflict detection and artificial intelligence. The displays were evaluated in formal flight experiments to judge their value and effects in assisting pilots in performing NASA's proposed high volume operations. The experiments measured situation awareness, workload, approach accuracy, and decision quality.