An operationally-applicable objective method for the analysis and evaluation of the flights of helicopter mission task elements during field-of-view trials

In 1995 the United Kingdom Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) conducted a series of pilotage field of view (FOV) trials on a Lynx helicopter. These were performed under the auspices of The Technical Cooperation Programme (TTCP), Subgroup H, Technical Panel 6 (HTP6). Before the commencement of the trials it was clear that it would be necessary to have available an objective method of determining not only the accuracy with which the various trial mission task elements would be flown, but also the relevance of the flying accuracy to the operational application. Such an objective method was not known to exist, therefore a suitable technique was derived, and deliberately tailored to give some read-across to the widely accepted subjective Cooper-Harper handling qualities rating. The derivation, application and usefulness of the composite objective rating (COR) technique are described herein, together with a synopsis of the trials themselves. The paper concludes with a summary of the trials results to date, which indicate a relationship between both objectively- and subjectively-gathered data concerning the flying performance, and the FOV of the evaluation pilot.