Projects:EASA PPL/Human Performance and Limitations

• Vision
  • Astigmatism
  • Myopia: optical image forms in front of retina
  • Presbyopia: loss of elasticity of crystalline lens, due to ageing, long sightedness
  • Hypermetropia
  • Rods: night vision
  • Cones: day vision
  • Dark adaptation: 30min
  • Light adaptation: 10sec
  • Degradation of night vision: starting 5000ft
  • Fovea: best day vision (cones), no night vision, used for reading
  • Optimise night vision: adapt, avoid blinding, do not focus on the point to be observed
  • Autokinetic illusion: staring at at point of fixed light appears to move
  • Empty field myopia: no object to focus on
• Hearing
  • Eustachian tube: connecting throat and middle ear
  • Middle ear: hammer, anvil, stirrup
  • Inner ear:
    • Vestibular apparatus: sacculus and utriculus, 3 semicircular channels
    • Otoliths (in utriculus and sacculus): affected by gravity and linear acceleration
    • Semi circular canals: angular acceleration
    • noise
  • Coriolis illusion: head movements during turns -> spatial disorientation
  • Dont fly with a cold: pain and damage to eardrum can result, espacially during fast decents
• Pilots vertigo: dizziness, tumbling sensation caused by contradictory impulses
• Blood cycle
  • Allow transportation of oxygen and carbon dioxide, chemical substances to transport information
  • Pulmonary artery: -oxygen, +carbon dioxide
  • carotid
  • aorta
  • pressoreceptors: in carotid and aortic arterial vessels
  • alveoli: carbon dioxide partial pressure is higher in the blood, so it moves out of blood
  • Exercise: double the heart rate for 20+min, 3x per week
  • Smoking: 5-8% less oxygen transport
  • Low blood sugar (hypoglycaemia): headache, lack of concentration

• Divided attention: multitasking, (not delegation)
• Skilled: trains regularly, know yourself, keep resources free for unexpected

• G force tolerance increase: Bend forward, tension abdominal muscles
• G force tolerance decrease: Low blood sugar, obesity, hypoxia

• Hyperventilation: Dizziness, Muscular spasms, visual disturbances, breath in bag, control breath rate and depth
• Scuba diving: Forbidden, decompression sickness, -> pain in the joints (the bends)
• Hypoxia:
  • Fatigue, Euphoria, Lack of concentration, Blue lips and finger nails, unconscious (Daltons Law)
  • Short term memory impairment starts at 12000ft
• Decompression sickness: dissolved gases from tissues and fluids of the body (Henrys law)
• Barotrauma: gases increase or decrease in body, facial sinuses, middle ear, dental cavities
• Otic Barotrauma: worse during descent, because eustation tube is closed, pressure can not equalize
• Laws
  • Daltons law: Hypoxia (Sum of multiple gases partial pressures = total pressure of gas mixture)
  • Boyles law: Rising air expands
  • Henrys law: Decompression sickness, gas bubbles moving out of solution
  • Grahams law:
  • Law of diffusion: oxygen transfer from alveoli to blood
• Seat of the pants
  • Receptors: muscles, tendons, joints
• Body temp: <35°C shivering will cease, apathy
• Runway:
  • narrower than normal: lower than it appears, landing short, should flatten the approach
  • wider than normal: higher than it appear, landing long
  • dropping off: approach is higher than normal -> result in long landing
  • in fog: runway appears further away than it actually is
• Alcohol:
  • 15mg / 25ml per hour
• Memory
  • Cocktail party effect: pick up relevant information unintentionally
• Attention guided by: level of automation, salience of information, expectations
• Decision making: voluntary+conscious process to select a solution for a problem
• Communication: send information in line with the receivers decoding capabilities
• Check list: important items first
• Status vs Role: status defines hierarchical position and recognition by group, role defines behaviours and functions
• Behaviour: Attitude and personality, adaptable
• Alarm phase (stress): increased arousal (due to adrenaline), increase heart rate, respiration, decrease stress resistance
• Resistance phase (stress): activation of autonomic nervous system (ANS), long-term psychosomatic disorders
• Stress: mobilization of resources, required to cope with the stressors
• Jet lag: Adjustment takes longer when traveling east
• Orthodox sleep: physical recovery
• Fatigue: Chronic short-term and acute