Page 44 - March 2016

PERSPECTIVES
By Kevin R. Dingman
Reactions Aging and reaction time
“The time elapsing between the beginning of a stimulus and the beginning of an organism’s reaction to it.” That’s the definition of reaction time – if you don’t mind being called an organism, that is. Even if you do mind, it’s still the definition. Our high school driver’s education teacher used “age, experience and wisdom” as his retort to the class contention that our youth and quick reaction time made us better drivers than older, slower-thinking drivers. We had yet to learn that the quickest reaction time is the one in which you avoid the need to react quickly in the first place. And that it’s not good to infer that the teacher is old. It can
be difficult to get such things through a teenager’s head, though, and some remain saddled with the cumbersome burden of a similar, slow-to-learn arrogance.
approaching mountain, accumulating ice, low fuel or the end of a runway. There were no screaming passengers, no smoke filling the cabin, no sounds of accelerating air or a decelerating engine. You could not clip any trees, sink in the ocean, land short, or bend any metal, even if your decision was wrong or reaction inadequate. In other words, there was no pressure. No pressure except for that imposed by my arrogance while trying to get into the top ten percentile. Perhaps the most relevant factor as a pilot, however, was that the tests didn’t provide for “gotta-get-there-itis” or the option to not react at all.
If it ain’t broke...
Without a ballistic recovery system or an ejection seat, we must control the aircraft until it stops moving. The decisions we make determine that stopping point; where our flight path intersects the tangent of the horizon. We prefer that area to be a nice, long, paved runway. The need for us to react instantly in order to achieve this geometric solution is normally relegated to taking off, landing and perhaps avoiding a mid-air collision. Other than these examples, however, the need for a nanosecond analysis, decision and immediate reaction is uncommon; there is normally time to think. Not drawn- out, committee-meeting type thinking, but enough time for analysis. As in business and politics, however, our deliberation and analysis sometimes results in the correct decision to not take any action at all...for the moment. Some of our actions can be irrevocable, and a hurried decision, even when using well-developed intuition, can be incomplete, inadequate and occasionally disastrous. We have learned to slow down, analyze by cross-checking multiple sources, gather the data, evaluate the options, and then react, appropriately and deliberately. Only at the end of the process do we execute any physical portion of the reaction, which is the moving of a control – or five. An unnecessarily quick reaction could generate an unpleasant surprise and additional difficulties. The first few seconds, or even a full minute, when reacting to an event are therefore used for recognition, analysis, decision making, and then action, if any.
Flying single-pilot in the weather can elevate heart rates faster than a letter from the IRS or an engine failure at V1. Unlike a warm sunny day, or in days past when we could analyze and react more quickly, inflight events can become distressing. It may take more time and effort in the planning and execution of the flight
Screaming Passengers
The top 12 percentile–that’s what I scored today using an internet reaction-time test–and I’m within a nine- iron of age 60. Another test categorized my reaction time as equivalent to that of age 40; not quite as fast as an arrogant high school kid. They were very simple physical tests, however, using the “click-now” function and were more similar to an arcade game than a useful measuring tool. Also, more of a hand-eye coordination assessment than a test of the ability to react, they didn’t require any decision making other than the recognition of a visual cue. There was no requirement for subject matter knowledge, analytical thinking or risk assessment. There were no time constraints like an
42 • TWIN & TURBINE
MARCH 2016