Which cognitive challenges do human pilots face during the execution of curved (RNP-AR) approaches? We hypothesize that the mental model required for a curved approach will be more complex than for a straight one. To investigate this, we compare risk and mental effort through physiological factors, control-input, and performance. Our current experiments focus on straight landing approaches under different visibility conditions and we compare the long and short final to establish which methods can be used to analyze mental effort and safety. Both student and professional pilots took part in our fixed base B747-400 simulator experiments. The control-input, performance, and ecg analyses appear to be particularly useful, whereas blink and especially pupil diameter data obtained from an eye camera is more difficult to use in analysis. To safely implement RNP-AR, we need to further investigate the necessities of cognitive skill training.20-22 November 2013, Takamatsu, Japa
