A PILOT’S PERSPECTIVE OF AUTOMATED MISSION MANAGEMENT

What every tactical military pilot wants is simple - mission success with survivability. The tactical helicopter pilot knows that the mission starts and ends in the briefing and it is that careful planning that will enable a successful and survivable mission. But importantly, the mission planning process does not end once he straps into the aircraft. The planning process continues in the aircraft; it must be accurate, flexible and fast, in order to meet the abbreviated response time allotted by high tempo, dynamic scenario operations, and further influenced by enhanced aircraft performance. The tactical pilot must function both as a system and tactical operator. By this description, his task workload assignment has grown immensely, and some responsible level of automation is recognized as the accepted solution. This paper explores the above issues, using, as an example of automated mission planning, a "DynaPlan™ Workstation" developed by TAU Corporation. This planning technology is also suitable for hosting in the aircraft avionics suite. Here, the pilot is offered an understandable, familiar, and "comfortable" interface in which to operate. An automated planner of this or similar nature has been identified as being needed by many of the Army Advanced Rotorcraft Technology Integration (ARTI) Program contractors. The challenge in this development has been not only to define and solve the automation problem, but to solve it within acceptable time limits and with a suitable interface to the pilot.