3D Flight Planning Using Extended Reality

For all pilots, before getting on their aircraft, they plan their flight. Through this, they preview flight information and assess the flight situation. However, despite the three-dimensional nature of flying, the majority of planning processes still rely on 2D map-based software. Extended Reality (XR) technology has been widely used in aviation, in particular in pilot and crew member training. Yet, there have been very few studies or applications that incorporate 3D visualization and XR into flight planning. To address this gap, our research focuses on the implementation of a 3D flight planning application in XR. Through a user study (N=16), we demonstrate that flight planning in 3D XR outperforms traditional 2D environments in terms of user experience. The study also provides insights into the preferred method of route planning: creating flight routes through a series of waypoints has better usability compared to drawing flight routes freely in a 3D XR environment.