ERGONOMIC DESIGN OF HELICOPTER CONTROLS GEOMETRY USING THE CRITERION OF PILOT COMFORTABLE WORKING POSTURE

The ergonomic quality of the operator station can be easily evaluated by using the criterion of comfortable joint angles along with other criteria. We can find a number of examples of ergonomic assessments of aircraft cockpit stations by using the above mentioned criterion in publications. Here we can cite, for instance, radiographic studies aimed to find out whether the cockpits in French helicopters such as the Puma, Gazelle and Alouette are comfortable. We can cite another research into comfortableness of pilot stations in the Russian passenger aircraft, such as the Tu-154 and the Il-62, done during simulated flights in simulators; it was conducted by using goniometers, i. e. instruments, indicating joint angles. In both cases studies were carried out either in actual cockpits or in full-scale cockpit simulators by a team of experts, who acted as "live dummies". The angle values given in Reference 3 were taken as comfortable angles. We suggest that this type of evaluation should made at early design stages, prior to building a mockup. In this case we proceed from the concepts used by us in developing a computerized evaluation system of helicopter crewmember stations by using the reach capability criterion. The system uses a particular parametric model of the pilot body, anthropometric database of flight personnel and computer technologies. Our computer anthropometric database is derived from statistical data used earlier for elaboration of a number of standards and manuals for designing aircraft cockpits and components of aircrew member stations. These data have been obtained by anthropometric experts during a survey of 2,000 pilots.