Flight testing of an airborne SVS with highway-in-the-sky on a head-up display

Sponsored by the NASA small aircraft transportation system (SATS), flight tests were conducted at Easton/Newnam Field Airport (KESN) and Danville Regional Airport (KDAN) in a Cessna 402B using a head-up display (HUD) and highway-in-the-sky (HITS) symbology. Flight testing showed that synthetic imagery using real-time aircraft data can be used for aircraft guidance and improved situational awareness. Comparable piloting accuracy was demonstrated with HITS as that achievable using only HUD flight director and velocity vector guidance. Pilot preference for HITS over traditional HUD guidance cues was mixed, but consistently agreed that a combined HITS-HUD improved situational awareness of the aircraft´s relative location with respect to the approach course. This flight test also proved the feasibility of an inexpensive synthetic vision system to generate HITS imagery with EVS on a low cost HUD.