Inter- and Intra- Pilot Rating Variability during Dynamic Interface Simulations

A large number of pilot-in-the-loop simulated landings to various ships were conducted with a rotorcraft model. Many of the runs exhibited small variations in wind azimuth and velocity, while several runs repeated previous wind conditions. For each landing, pilot workload values were recorded in terms of both Cooper-Harper Handling Quality Ratings (HQRs) and Deck Interface Pilot Effort Scale (DIPES). This study compares these ratings to highlight how repeatable a pilot's perceived workload is for the given task. The results are also compared against actual Dynamic Interface (DI) results. Overall, it is shown that the majority of the standard deviation values for these ratings range from 0.2 to 0.8. This is fairly high when the workload scales range from 1 to 10 and 1 to 5, for HQR and DIPES respectively, and even high when one considers that pilots very rarely supply DIPES ratings of 5 or HQRs of 1, 7, 8, 9, or 10. This warrants the suggestion that workload studies and Dynamic Interface trials should ensure data points are repeated an appropriate number of times to ensure confidence in the results.