Visual Reconnaissance from the Nose Versus Side Scanner Stations of an Aircraft.
James L. Porterfield, Steve A Heckart, Herschel C. Self, McKechnie,E. P. · Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) · 1971
The study investigated airborne visual reconnaissance from the nose versus side scanner stations of an aircraft. Six subjects performed the search task at the nose station of a B-50 aircraft and six different subjects performed the task at the two side scanner stations, located aft of the wings. During each pass one subject at the nose station and one at each of the scanner stations searched for tactical target sites located in rolling farm and woodland, and identified and counted the individual targets at the sites that they located. A mean of 65 percent of the target sites was detected by the subjects in the two scanner stations, whereas only 36 percent were detected by the subjects in the nose station. On the other hand, for the target sites that were detected, the scanner subjects identified only 37 percent of the individual targets while the subjects in the nose identified 60 percent. Wide differences between subjects were found in their search and identification performance. (Author)