Becky
Line Up and Wait
- Joined
- Dec 6, 2012
- Messages
- 828
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Becky
Threads lately have been extremely enlightening for me ... wife of a pilot ... and we both love to talk about this stuff, too: Flying, safety, and the brain. (Yes, we are talking about flying ... thanks again.) My husband writes software for neurological testing, so he is a good resource about the brain.
So I'm positively enthralled when poring over these threads ... whiskey in the cockpit! basal ganglia! drugs! multitasking! endorphins! n=1! crusty old pilots with 30,000 safe hours! and so forth. Not to mention "Dumbest thing you ever did .." and all the recent "Plane down" threads. The pilot who brought home the Cherokee with the blown cylinder! Versus the pilot who wandered around in what appeared to be zero visibility until he crashed. Why do some pilots keep their wits about them and stay focused, and others either briefly or for longer times truly lose touch with their situation and mismanage it?
We've all seen the recounts (very well recorded and documented) of commercial pilots having reality breaks. A pilot can be SEEING something (lights on the horizon showing his orientation is askew, instrument readouts) or even HEARING something (from the co-pilot, from ATC) that they simply DO NOT INTERNALIZE correctly or quickly enough as really happening. Hence, they do not deal with it effectively.
The brain is wired to send us information that will keep us alive. But it can also deceive us very effectively ... we can perceive safety where there is none, just as we can perceive danger where there is none apparent. In Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales we read about a fighter pilot who ignored all the signals from the carrier deck crew, and from his own instruments, to go around. He knew he was too low. He crashed into the side of the carrier because he "perceived" the deck to represent safety. He survived, which is why we know his thought processes.
Someone posted on another thread about the horror of watching an experienced pilot friend make a fatal mistake, and wondering, how could he have done that? Of course wives are going to think about these things; not obsess, but think. If an experienced pilot can make a fatal mistake ... what about my lower-hours husband pilot ... especially when he begins to exceed the lower-hours stastistical "safety" range? (But now we see from The Killing Fields that UP TO 350 hours after checkride is the most dangerous!!!)
At the end of the day, I don't think any of us can know how we would respond in a life-or-death situation in flight unless we have actually experienced one. GA is not a safe hobby, and never will be. There seems to be consensus here on that, and a focus on risk management.
Even a well-trained mind can fixate, freeze or fumble, and fail to respond for survival, despite all training and experience. Obviously, CFIs and examiners must not be able to pick all of these people out and prevent them from being licensed. But perhaps they weed out most of them. At the end of the day, it's all a calculated, mostly-managed risk, inhabited by imperfections and unknowns. And all that is not a mix that puts a wife of a pilot at ease.
So I'm positively enthralled when poring over these threads ... whiskey in the cockpit! basal ganglia! drugs! multitasking! endorphins! n=1! crusty old pilots with 30,000 safe hours! and so forth. Not to mention "Dumbest thing you ever did .." and all the recent "Plane down" threads. The pilot who brought home the Cherokee with the blown cylinder! Versus the pilot who wandered around in what appeared to be zero visibility until he crashed. Why do some pilots keep their wits about them and stay focused, and others either briefly or for longer times truly lose touch with their situation and mismanage it?
We've all seen the recounts (very well recorded and documented) of commercial pilots having reality breaks. A pilot can be SEEING something (lights on the horizon showing his orientation is askew, instrument readouts) or even HEARING something (from the co-pilot, from ATC) that they simply DO NOT INTERNALIZE correctly or quickly enough as really happening. Hence, they do not deal with it effectively.
The brain is wired to send us information that will keep us alive. But it can also deceive us very effectively ... we can perceive safety where there is none, just as we can perceive danger where there is none apparent. In Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales we read about a fighter pilot who ignored all the signals from the carrier deck crew, and from his own instruments, to go around. He knew he was too low. He crashed into the side of the carrier because he "perceived" the deck to represent safety. He survived, which is why we know his thought processes.
Someone posted on another thread about the horror of watching an experienced pilot friend make a fatal mistake, and wondering, how could he have done that? Of course wives are going to think about these things; not obsess, but think. If an experienced pilot can make a fatal mistake ... what about my lower-hours husband pilot ... especially when he begins to exceed the lower-hours stastistical "safety" range? (But now we see from The Killing Fields that UP TO 350 hours after checkride is the most dangerous!!!)
At the end of the day, I don't think any of us can know how we would respond in a life-or-death situation in flight unless we have actually experienced one. GA is not a safe hobby, and never will be. There seems to be consensus here on that, and a focus on risk management.
Even a well-trained mind can fixate, freeze or fumble, and fail to respond for survival, despite all training and experience. Obviously, CFIs and examiners must not be able to pick all of these people out and prevent them from being licensed. But perhaps they weed out most of them. At the end of the day, it's all a calculated, mostly-managed risk, inhabited by imperfections and unknowns. And all that is not a mix that puts a wife of a pilot at ease.
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