In-flight weather trending information: optimal looping characteristics for animated NEXRAD images

In this experiment, we tested the influence of four factors for optimal design of an animated NEXRAD radar mosaic imagery product for the general aviation cockpit: number of frames per loop, total loop time, pilot viewing time (exposure time), and inclusion of animated aircraft track history (aircraft looping). This experiment is the first in a family of experiments being conducted to determine the NEXRAD animation characteristics that optimize pilot weather situation awareness, under differing workloads, and to compare this trending technique with other in-flight trending presentations. Weather situation awareness was measured by the ability of pilots to accurately determine if their aircraft would encounter moderate or severe weather prior to or upon reaching their next waypoint, and in the case of no encounter, to predict the distance between the aircraft and weather at the waypoint. Weather situation awareness was most influenced by the number of frames per loop and loop time. Pilots were able to both predict a future encounter with weather and predict distance more accurately when the animation included at least 5 frames, and with a loop time of at least 1.0 second. Increasing the loop time to 3.0 seconds further increased the accuracy of distance predictions. However, pilots were equally accurate when provided with as few as 4.5 or as many as 13.5 seconds to view the looping presentation. There is some indication that including aircraft looping also enhances weather situation awareness, although further investigation will be required to establish this effect. These results will help in the development of product guidelines for in-flight animated NEXRAD images.