Fixation Adjustment During the Landing Process and Its Relationship with Pilot Expertise and Landing Performance.

In order to examine whether there is a fixation adjustment and whether expert and novice pilots differ in their adjustment patterns during the landing process, and to identify specific fixation indicators that might be linked with landing performance, the eye movement data marked at different height (50–40 ft, 40–30 ft, etc.) of 29 captains and 28 copilots which were all serving in civil airlines with valid commercial license was collected by glasses eye-tractor during landing missions on Airbus320 full-motion simulators. The results show that: The landing performance of the experts was higher than that of the novices, experts had significantly better scores in terms a significant difference on the score of landing position, landing load, and handling stability, the difference between experts and novices on attitude, yaw angle and bank angle of the aircraft were only approaching significant. The study also found evidence suggesting the pilots do adjust their gaze points during the landing process and the experts made such an adjustment in a more salient manner. The pilots reduced their times of watch to the front part of the runway but increased their times of watching the rear part of the runway during the landing process. As compared to the novices, experts put much more attention to the front part of the runway from very beginning to almost halfway (50–30 ft height rang feet). Moreover, earlier fixations on the rear part of the runway may result in deteriorated landing performance. There was also some evidence suggesting that more fixations on the forward part of the runway at certain times (40–30 range feet, 10–5 range feet) were linked with better landing position. All these results confirm that experts can make a quicker and more effective attentional adjustment during the landing process. This study offers a new way to understand the landing process and these conclusions will be of great value to develop the training course for new pilots to improve their landing skills.