Capt Pitbull is quite correct; there are, unfortunately, some errors in the New Scientist article. But the article was not written by the originators of the development work––it was written by a journalist.
The word ‘bunt’ does not appear in any of the work associated with the project––or in the presentation given at the week long Royal Aeronautical Society CEAS International New Innovations Conference held in Manchester.
Were any of you there?
Clearly not.
Because I had assumed––obviously, completely incorrectly, that the negative comments being posted on this next-generation thinking––were as a result of reading––and carefully assessing––the RAeS published academic conference paper on the subject––and not on a postage-stamp sized illustration of part of an experiment, in a half-page magazine article with, as you quite rightly point out, some holes in it.
This work (which is continuing) was conducted as a seven year full-time research and iterative design development programme, in very close association with senior airline and military establishments (and the cockpit display is only a part of the new systems produced).
(By the way: there most certainly are pitch indications in the display––but the IPRS system only displays information as the pilot needs it––again, that is all clearly covered in the conference paper which I'm sure the RAeS will be happy to supply you with.)
One of the key outcomes of the research was this: Adrenaline is the killer.
Go and do some research on that yourself––and whist you’re at it, look at some of the internationally acclaimed work done on the issues relative to LoC and CFIT (much of it funded by NASA and the FAA) by Shappell and Weigmann; Chris Wickens, and Stanley Roscoe.
What you will come to is a very clear conclusion––No amount of training will overcome the automatic sympathetic nervous system (a relict of our evolution): Once adrenaline floods into the bloodstream, thinking closes-down. The pilot cannot read one mechanical aesthetic instrument––let alone two. The accident statistics prove that.
So, the outcome of the research was that to eliminate the effects of adrenaline, we need systems that don’t require thinking.
And whilst you are doing some research, check the E/GPWS stastics––accidents still occur where ground proximity systems annunciate. (And we have looked at and addressed the reasons for that.)
Get used to one fact: change, is inevitable.
It is no longer acceptable––or necessary––for an airliner full of innocent people to be lost in circumstances of loss of control or controlled flight into terrain.
Let me repeat that: It is no longer necessary for LoC or CFIT to happen.
Loss of Control and Controlled Flight Into Terrain can be stopped.
Although there are military applications for the work very briefly reported in New Scientist––the overriding objective––the thing that drives it, is (and remains) to stop control of airliners being lost in weather extremes––and to stop airliners flying into mountains or into the ground short of the runway on approach.