The Role of Binocular Cues in Human Pilot Landing Control

Abstract

The paper discusses the possible use of binocular cues by aircraft pilots in the final landing phase through a review of literature. The review includes medical and psychophysical literature, as well as works on pilot training, certification and flight experiments. It was found that stereopsis can be used as a depth cue up to several hundred meters. However, in situations where monocular cues are available, its practical limit should be expected to be 20-65m and stereopsis is very unlikely to be of significant importance beyond 100m. These limits imply that for small aircraft, helicopters and ground operations stereopsis will be beneficial. For simulation or human pilot modeling regarding the landing of mid-sized jet aircraft stereopsis can be ignored. Other interesting findings include the importance of the wide field of view which comes with binocular vision and the notion that effective use of monocular depth cues can be trained.