Apparent Motion of the Runway Sidelines as a Visual Cue to Flare Timing : An Investigation through Full Flight Simulator Experiments

A series of experiments were carried out in Level D certified Full Flight Simulators of Boeing 767-type aircraft to analyse the human pilot's visual information usage and decision making in the final phase of the approach to landing. Based on earlier stages of this research, we hypothesized that the motion of the runway sidelines provides experienced pilots with an important visual cue to time the flare manoeuvre. Four veteran pilots from two different airlines took part in the experiments and additionally one junior pilot (co-pilot rank) was evaluated for comparison. By varying wind conditions and aircraft gross weight, a variety of nominal approach sink rates were achieved, while maintaining the visual scene geometry pertaining to the 3° descent path common in civil aviation. Our results refute the common belief that the flare is initiated at a certain altitude, and our hypothesis compared favourably to the time-to-contact (tau-margin) hypothesis.14th Australian Aeronautical Conference, Melbourne, Australia, 28 Feb - 3 Mar 201