Disorientation? Do you mean the leans?
Tracy Grimshaw
To many pilots, the 'leans', a feeling, after manoeuvring in cloud, that the aircraft is flying one wing low despite straight and level being indicated on the Attitude Indicator (AI), may be their only experience of disorientation. Yet this is a limited view of disorientation, as shown by the results of a 2007 survey (conducted by QinetiQ for MOD). In this survey, aircrew were asked for freestyle accounts of occasions in their flying career where the pilot either became confused about the position or attitude of the aircraft or else suddenly became aware that the aircraft attitude or position was not what he/she had expected it to be.
Many previous surveys have consisted of a list of disorientating illusions with boxes to tick if aircrew have experienced them. There are two problems with this approach. One is that it does not tell you where the real problems lie - not all illusions have significant consequences. And secondly, the truly disorientated pilot who experiences an incident that is a threat to flight safety does not always describe it as an illusion. To him or her, it is reality.
This 2007 survey has shown several common themes of disorientating incidents experienced by pilots, which will be discussed during the presentation. For example, although disorientation is often thought of as a problem associated with flight in Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC), there are occasions when the visual world is deceptive and leads to aircraft altitude errors.
The value of these incident reports over a list of disorientating illusions is that they are directly applicable to training. With the increasing sophistication of standard training simulators it is possible to create scenarios that aircrew have encountered, and thus allow aircrew to develop strategies to avoid losing awareness of what the aircraft is doing despite the conflicting demands of the sortie. Scenarios of this sort have been incorporated into helicopter pilot training at RAF Shawbury and are under trial at RAF Benson.
The survey is being repeated during 2009, two years after completion of the previous survey to help inform potential mitigating strategies.
Benefit to audience
The presentation will discuss common SD incidents and show that disorientation is about more than the leans?.
To download the full paper CLICK HERE (.PDF)
