Pilot's perception in the control of aircraft motions

For proper manual aircraft control, the pilot has to perceive the motion state of the aircraft. In this perception process both the visual and the vestibular systems play an important role. To understand this perception process and its impact on a pilot's control behavior a descriptive model was developed. The single-channel information-processor model was applied as the basic structure of the final model. Three groups of experiments were performed to refine the model structure and to define the majority of the model parameters. The model has been evaluated by measuring the control behavior in tracking tasks.