The FAA Wind Shear Program has the objectives of examining the hazards associated with low-level wind shear, developing solutions to the wind-shear problem, implementing the solutions, and integrating them into the National Airspace System. In support of this program, potential solutions in the category of airborne equipment are being investigated by the All-Weather Landing Systems (AWLS) team under Task 2 of a contract from the FAA Approach and Landing Division. The Task 2 team consists of SRI, Bunker Ramo Corporation (BR), and Collins Avionics Group of Rockwell International. The investigation has been concerned with airline transport jet aircraft. The approach has been to give primary consideration to the lowest-cost candidate aiding concepts to ensure that any potential solution will be cost effective. The project task has included the design and test of airplane control laws, the analysis of airplane responses to wind shears, the development of wind models, the determination of the hazards presented by various wind fields, and the development and test of various instruments intended to aid the pilot in coping with wind shear. The majority of the effort has been spent on a series of piloted flight simulation tests.

Task 2 of the All-Weather Landing Systems project is concerned with piloted flight simulation tests of various techniques designed to aid the pilot to detect and cope with low-level wind shear on approach and landing. This report documents the tests of Phase 2, a comparative evaluation of the most promising panel-displayed techniques from the Phase 1 study. The operational situation of a DC-10 aircraft landing in Category I visibility with ILS guidance was simulated. Winds corresponding to inversion-layer, frontal, thunderstorm and 'no-shear' conditions were simulated to provide test profiles. The 'baseline' aiding concept was the conventional DC-10 manual approach management. The aiding concepts tested were based on ground speed displays (first experiment), flight path angle (second), and modified (acceleration-augmented) flight director (third experiment). The results showed that ground speed displayed on the airspeed indicator and the modified flight director can improve performance significantly over baseline, especially on the thunderstorm wind profiles, which was the most difficult condition.