Synthetic vision flight tests for low level guidance in poor visibility

Computer generated synthetic vision is considered a means of providing the pilot with full visual information on board of an aircraft. The synthetic vision consists of a three-dimensional image of the outside world with a presentation of the elevation and features of the terrain and integrated guidance information including a tunnel display for curved trajectory following. A high precision navigation system using differential global positioning and inertial sensor data provides accurate position and attitude data which are transferred to the synthetic vision computer. A flight test program consisting of three test series was performed with an especially equipped research aircraft. The equipment included the addressed synthetic vision and navigation systems. The flight test results show that the pilot controlled the aircraft on three-dimensional trajectories with high precision.