Heart rate monitoring of pilots during steep-gradient approaches

As part of a large scale investigation into noise abatement landing approaches, one trial involved the flight evaluation of steep-gradient and two-segment approaches; these were 3 degress, 6 degrees, 7.5 degrees, and 9 degrees single-segment, and 7.5 degrees/3 degrees two-segment approaches. To augment the subjective opinions of the test pilots, their heart rates were monitored during all the experimental runs. The resulting heart rate values for the different approaches correlated reasonably well with the subjective ratings of the relative workload levels. There is some evidence that the pilot workload level for the 7.5 degrees/3 degrees approaches is of the same order as the level for the conventional 3 degrees gradient.