Visual Attention of Private Pilots, the Proportion of Time Devoted to Outside the Cockpit.

The direction of the pilots visual attention was recorded during three series of flights in a small aircraft. It was found that pilots using visual flight rules VFR spent approximately 50 percent of the time looking outside the cockpit, an airsearch time much higher than previously recorded for air-carrier cockpits. The remainder of the time, while occupied in the cockpit, the pilot might be likely to miss seeing an approaching aircraft. Hence, a test environment for pilot warning systems intended to aid visual detection of potential threats should employ a pilot workload that produces a realistic proportion of visual attention available for outside search. Author