Lowered Situation Awareness When Using a Helmet-Mounted Head-Up Display (HUD) in a Simulated Rotary-Wing Aircraft

Abstract

Head-up displays (HUDs) have been shown to facilitate pilot performance in specific tasks such as controlling flight path and altitude. However, results from a number of simulator-based studies suggest that HUDs may decrease pilot situation awareness (SA) in tasks that require continuous monitoring of information in the environment. In extreme cases, HUDs have lowered SA to the extent that pilots may fail to detect potentially critical discrete events in the environment. Most research on HUDs has used fixed-panel displays. The present research examined the impact of a helmet-mounted display (HMD) HUD on pilot SA