Stress
Human performance is mitigated by physical stresses such as fatigue, fitness, sleep, food, age and illness. Psychological stressors such as personal family problems, work load, situational awareness. External dynamic stresses due to weather, turbulence, aircraft performance and time factors. Stress is the result of events that cause preoccupation reducing external awareness and making activities subject to distraction. Stress causes the taking of risks that would otherwise be unacceptable.
Stress in moderate amounts is both necessary and desirable when flying. It prevents boredom and inhibits fatigue. The other extreme of stress leads to panic and impaired capability. Accidents happen when flying requirements exceed capability. Time in the air will decrease capability and lower the stress/panic threshold. 69% of accidents occur in the landing phase of flight operations. This is when time in the air is greatest and the stress/panic threshold lowest.
Whenever excessive tension exists, the ability to make considered judgments deteriorates. The concepts of what is best or safest become an emotional decision based more on fears or concerns rather than realities. Under tension the ability to make correct decisions deteriorates and compounds both the tension and the reliability of the selected solution. The pilot MUST recognize areas of tension and undertake an instructional program to raise a proficiency level to where competence reduces tension. Failure to resolve any tension-producing problem will eventually lead to an unforeseen situation where a decision will produce an accident. The instructional program must expose the student to those tension producing situations before the student goes solo. Stress exposure is a form of stress inoculation.
The most common tension producer is through use of the radio. At a given point in airspace the student knows that he should be prepared to say a given sequence of communication facts. Where to start talking, what to say, in what sequence, and the fear of the unknown ATC create tension. After being lost or disoriented the most dramatic tension producer is x-wind landings, next I would place unfamiliar airports, especially if they are small, followed closely by radio procedure uncertainty. Night flight over unfamiliar terrain certainly raises cockpit temperature. Turbulence produces tension in the best of us as does proximity to the ground. All of these tension producers can be reduced or eliminated by gradual programmed exposure. Stress reduction, according to one expert, can be achieved by only landing at airports and peeing every chance you get.
Vertigo
Unrecognized spatial disorientation is caused by some combination of channeled attention, distraction and target fixation. These most often occur in conjunction with loss of situational awareness due to excessive workload. A 10-degree bank with only the approach lights visible can cause an illusion that the lights are sloping from above.
Recognized spatial disorientation is when the pilot is aware of his disorientation and should be able to work through a recovery sequence by establishing recommended power and attitude changes. Pilots have, over the radio, acknowledged their vertigo and inability to overcome it prior to crashing.
Incapacitating spatial disorientation occurs when the motion of aircraft is so severe that pilot may be incapable of rationally perceiving and processing information and making decisions. May cause nystagmus (trembling of the eyes) which makes reading of instruments impossible. Rare but can occur in extremes of weather or flight conditions. Other types of spatial disorientation are illusions such as caused by runway/cloud sizes, shapes, or slope.
Vertigo is the #1 cause of Air Force fatal accidents. Vision is the pre-installed vertigo preventative. A moments glance out-the-window is all it takes. This will overcome any sensations from other sources. However, without vision, the organs of balance in the inner ear take over. The semicircular canals approximate the three axes. They contain a fluid that stimulates our senses of angular acceleration in these axes. The otolith organs establish our sense of uprightness. Tiny stones affect hair sensors in reaction to "gravity". Otoliths sense linear accelerations, not angular accelerations, and regardless of the direction interpret such accelerations as gravity. In our muscles and joints we have sensors which give additional information about push or pull. Unless one or all of these sensors are confirmed by vision we are on our way to vertigo.
Nutrition
Food when converted into glucose is the source of brain energy. Glucose cannot be stored. As blood sugar it requires constant renewal. If glucose is not renewed the body and the mind shows evidence of fatigue, mental confusion, faintness, headache, memory loss, dizziness, vision problem, cold hands and feet.
Reduced blood pressure, tension, depression and hunger are all symptoms of hypoglycemia. This can be caused by the lack of a balanced meal within the past five hours. Ten hours without food will severely affect decision-making ability, alertness, coordination, and perception. Skipping breakfast causes fasting hypoglycemia. All hypoglycemia types can be aggravated by other physiological factors.
Altitude can incapacitate a pilot through dehydration. Increase your fluid intake prior to and during flight. What you eat is just as important as just eating. Reactive hypoglycemia can cause lack of consciousness. This is a reaction to the doughnut/candy bar meal. The student pilot who does not eat because of possible airsickness is endangering himself if flying solo. High sugar meals cause the pancreas to create excess insulin. Insulin allows the body to use sugar. Too much insulin and deplete sugar to such a low level as to incapacitate the body and mind. Adding caffeine, alcohol and nicotine acerbates the problem. Flying should be preceded by a balanced meal. Neuronutriments are the vitamins and minerals that the body can change into neurotransmitters. Trace minerals such as potassium, zinc, iron, and chromium are essential to control the body’s sugar burning process. The more balanced our meals the better will be our mental functioning and memory.
Minihre's Disease.
The symptoms are dizziness, ringing in the ear and progressive deafness, especially among lower frequency tones. Episodes can last from under an hour to as long as two days. Usually, the disease starts in one ear and may progress to the other. Researchers believe that the problem often begins in the tissue that lines canals of the inner ear, the place where sensory organs for balance and hearing reside. This tissue manufactures and filters the fluid that fills the inner ear. Too much fluid within the canals can cause nerve fibers within the canals to become distorted and over stimulated. The symptoms of Minihre's disease can be treated with drugs to control vertigo, diuretics to curb fluid build-up in the inner ear, and sometimes surgery
In 1861, the French physician Prosper Minihre published his first report about a malady of the inner ear that eventually became known as Minihre's disease. The symptoms are dizziness, ringing in the ear and progressive deafness, especially among lower frequency tones. Episodes can last from under an hour to as long as two days. Usually, the disease starts in one ear and may progress to the other. Researchers believe that the problem often begins in the tissue that lines canals of the inner ear, the place where sensory organs for balance and hearing reside. This tissue manufactures and filters the fluid that fills the inner ear. Too much fluid within the canals can cause nerve fibers within the canals to become distorted and over-stimulated. The symptoms of Minihre's disease can be treated with drugs to control vertigo, diuretics to curb fluid build-up in the inner ear, and sometimes surgery.
Smoking and Eyesight
Scotland's leading ophthalmologist, Sir Stewart Duke-Elder, wrote a classic manual for eye surgeons, entitled "Textbook of Ophthalmology." Duke-Elder, who was born on this date in 1898, was one of the first doctors to link tobacco to a visual defect. The condition, known as "tobacco amblyopia," impairs the eye's ability to see green and red. "The patient, usually a man of a little over 50, complains for some weeks his sight has gradually and without apparent reason failed, so that now he finds difficulty in reading or doing fine work; he sees a mist before his eyes hanging in front of everything he looks at," he wrote. However, once the patient quit smoking, the condition could be easily treated with vitamin B-12 and brewer's yeast. Duke-Elder died in 1978.
Drinking and Drugs
Had a DUI traffic violation. Do I need to report it and to whom?
You need to report it to the FAA's Internal Security and Investigation Division (formerly the Civil Aviation Security Division) within 60 days of the date it occurred, according to FAA regulation 14 CFR Part 61 Section 61.15 "Offenses involving alcohol or drugs" It doesn't matter if the charges are later dismissed or reduced to a lesser charge. If your driver's license was suspended for an alcohol or drug action in any form, you must report it, even if your driver's license was suspended for only a few hours (i.e., withheld by law enforcement, which includes not letting you drive home or requiring another person to drive you home). Additionally, at the time of your next FAA medical exam/review, you are required to report the DUI to the FAA's Aerospace Medical Certification Division. More information is available online ( http://
Continues on Page Age, Your Senses, and Fatigue
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