New Flight Simulators Take Guesswork Out of Designing Better Combat Cockpit

The fighter pilots of yesterday, who thrived on personal courage and gut instincts, are being replaced in the aircraft of tomorrow by pilots who will be pummeled with so much information from so many sources that they could get inundated by the avalanche of data that is supposed to protect them.

Engineers call it “sensory overload,” but for pilots in aircraft designed to fly several times the speed of sound, it means simply that they cannot cope with all that their eyes see, their ears hear and their fingers feel.

In the split-second timing that will determine who lives and who dies, the winner may well be the one whose data was presented the most clearly.

“The pilot needs some way to make sense out of it without having to think about it,” said Tim Mikita, an ex-Air Force fighter pilot who manages an imaginative new program at Northrop Corp. in Hawthorne.

A new computerized cockpit simulator at Northrop has convinced Mikita and his colleagues that even such things as colors can make a big difference.

The simulator allows engineers to change the configuration of the cockpit by moving instruments, adding or subtracting visual aids, or changing the equipment available to the pilot by simply throwing a switch. Nine veteran pilots sitting at computer consoles in an adjoining room then “fly” the reconfigured aircraft in a mock aerial battle, testing the results of the changes.

Traditionally, engineers have had to design and build the hardware and put it in use aboard an actual aircraft before they knew if their ideas helped the pilot.

“If you were wrong, it took a lot of time and money to correct it,” Mikita said.

Mikita, who flew F-4 Phantom jets in Vietnam, said that when the F-4 was first introduced, each weapon system was controlled by a separate switch on the instrument panel, and when the pilot wanted to switch between different types of missiles and guns, he had to reach forward and flip a different switch.

“We found that in the heat of battle, the pilot had a very high workload just in activating the switches,” he said.

The system was eventually changed to a single switch on the aircraft’s control stick, so the pilot could easily select any of the systems.

If a simulator had been available in those days, he said, “we could have discovered that there was a very high workload and we would have identified the fact that we needed to integrate the switches” before the plane was even built.

By using a computerized simulator, “we can arrive at what we feel is the optimum before we build the hardware,” he added. “It’s a revolutionary way to do business.”

The Northrop program is the latest wrinkle in a new wave of technology that is sweeping the aerospace industry. Computers can replicate the real world and make major modifications in seconds, providing a dramatic shortcut in the development stage and vastly increasing the options available to aircraft designers.

The purpose of the Northrop simulator is to improve the design of the cockpit.

“Cockpit design had been an ad hoc arrangement,” Mikita said, noting that instruments were placed wherever there was room for them, not necessarily in the best spot for the pilot.

“The pilot was assumed to be an adaptable piece of hardware,” he added.

Computer simulators now figure in virtually every phase of aircraft design. Ames Research Center in Mountain View recently cranked up one of the most powerful computers in the world for use in designing high-performance aircraft. The Ames system is the Space Age equivalent of the wind tunnel, allowing engineers to determine the impact of even the most subtle changes in aircraft design.

Such things as the shape of the wings can be tested with the Ames computer to determine how the air flows past a new design, thus allowing engineers to make thousands of modifications in the design before any hardware is built.

Although it has been fully operational for only a few months, the Northrop facility has already taught engineers a lot about cockpit design, according to Frank Drsata, a psychologist who heads the “human factors group.”

“We can fuse information in a way that is best for the pilot to understand,” Drsata said.

Even color can play a significant role in the way data is presented on the monitors that tell the pilot what is out there, far beyond the range of his vision, as detected through such aids as radar or infrared sensors. That is particularly important because most aerial battles in the future will be over before the opposing planes are even close enough for the pilots to see each other.

Color serves as an attracter, or as a warning, Drsata said, “so threats can be red, friendlies blue.”

So when a pilot looks at his radar screen, he doesn’t have to think about whether the blip he sees is an enemy or a colleague. If the blip is blue, he knows it is a friend. If it’s red, it’s an enemy.

Drsata is also studying long-range programs that could help a pilot maintain his orientation during combat, including such things as three-dimensional sound.

“The pilot is a three-dimensional being,” Drsata said, and when he hears another pilot talking to him through his radio, the sound ought to automatically tell each pilot where the other is, just as it does when two people speak to each other in a normal environment.

“You would hear him from where he is,” Drsata said.

“Ultimately,” Mikita said, “the aircraft should be able to talk to you,” responding to audible commands and answering specific questions about fuel or weapons that now require a pilot to divert his eyes to instruments.

That kind of technology is probably 10 or 15 years down the road, but the simulator is being used now to test ideas that could be incorporated in the near future.

Almost any change in an aircraft affects the plane in different ways. Extending an aircraft’s radar range, which is normally around 90 to 160 miles, would increase visibility for the pilot, but the larger antenna needed for that would also affect the aircraft’s flight characteristics, possibly slowing it down. Thus extending the range may seem like an obvious improvement, but it may in fact do more harm than good, noted Paul A. Marchisotto, manager of advanced design tactical simulation at Northrop.

“Any kind of assumption is based on past experiences, and it’s not always correct,” Marchisotto said.

So since any change may have a detrimental effect, “we want to know not just whether it’s better, but how much better,” he added.

The quality of the technology is particularly important to engineers who design high-performance aircraft because intelligence data tells them that any encounter with the Soviet Union--the potential adversary on which so much planning and research is based--would place U.S. pilots in a very difficult position.

“We are assuming we will be outnumbered,” Marchisotto said, noting that the Soviets are believed to have far more fighters than the United States has. Simulated battles usually pit two U.S. aircraft against six or seven enemy planes.

But the side with the largest number of aircraft will not necessarily win the battle, according to defense planners.

“You need superior technology to survive with that kind of ratio,” said Marty Flax, manager of the Northrop simulator.

The trick, however, is to supply the technology without overwhelming the pilot.

“Even experienced pilots can get overloaded,” Mikita said.

If nothing else, the simulator should help bring about the demise of the “loudest voice” school of aircraft design, he said.

Aircraft of the past have been designed by committees, he added, and engineers with the loudest voice usually prevailed.

“A lot of mistakes have been made,” Mikita said.

Now, the loudest voices can be tested before the hardware is built.