A Certified by..........................................................

A critical issue in military aviation is the pilot's ability to transition between primarily internal (head-down, instrument-driven) and external (head-up, out of the cockpit) guidance. Experimental cockpit displays were designed and tested for how well they might support this transition phase for military pilots performing time-critical air-to-ground targeting missions such as Forward Air Control (FAC) and Close Air Support (CAS). Twelve subjects performed three sets of experiments using a flight simulator (with simulated heads-up display (HUD) in the forward field of view) connected to a moving-map display. The experiments were designed to help explain which visual cues in the displays might best help a pilot 1) navigate to a given target area (the "flight guidance " phase of a mission) and 2) search for, find and identify a target (the "target acquisition " phase). In one experiment, subjects flew a mission using three different versions of a plan-view moving-map display: 1) a detailed, topographic map with high-contrast mission overlays, 2) the ma