Fatigue in the Cockpit
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| Nuts for fighting fatigue |
Years ago when an autopilot was a luxury option, homebuilt airplanes mostly did without them. But then innovative engineers, for example of the TruTrak company, came up with low-cost autopilot installations. That option, wonderful as it was, brought a new aspect to long-distance flying: the effect of fatigue.
Surprised? Well, if your plane doesn't have an autopilot, nodding off due to fatigue is not an option, and if done anyway, it may prove deadly. Hence there is strong motivation to stay awake.
With an autopilot on board, the plane flies itself for an extended period without any pilot input. Thus, nodding off is tempting, but wrong, of course. "Maybe I should close my eyes for a few seconds,'' the pilot reasons. "It cannot possibly cause a problem,'' the argument continues. Of course, all this is wrong. Seconds easily become minutes, with potentially disastrous consequences.
How can a pilot fight this temptation? This post supplies a simple method that we have found to be very reliable.
Let's look at fatigue. One might consider it the reaction of the body to an extended effort. Basically, the argument goes, the muscles or whatever else is involved tell the brain that rest is needed.
It's a wrong but seemingly ineradicable explanation. It fails to account for the following. In 1986, Georges Holtyzer of Belgium walked 418 miles in six and a half days. He was not permitted any stops for rest and moved almost 99 percent of the time. Craig Glenday, Editor-in-Chief at Guinness World Records, reports:
"Georges Holtyzer of Belgium walked 673.48 km (418.49 miles) in 6 days 10 hours 58 minutes, completing 452 laps of a 1.49 km (0.92 mile) circuit at Ninove, Belgium, from July 19 to July 25, 1986. He was not permitted any stops for rest and was moving 98.78 percent of the time.''
How then can a flight of, say, 4 hours produce fatigue?
The answer: The fatigue has nothing do with the muscles or anything else getting stressed too much and needing rest. Instead, fatigue is an emotion that anticipates that the current activity won't just continue for hours, but days. For that extended effort, subconscious neuroprocesses of the nervous system have computed the following: Given that looming huge effort, rest is needed now to protect the body from harm.
If you want to read more about this, get the book Physical Intelligence: The Science of How the Body and the Mind Guide Each Other Through Life by Scott Grafton. Or read the Fatigue chapter in my book Magic, Error, and Terror: How Models in Our Brain Succeed and Fail.
How can we prevent subconscious neuroprocesses from computing the erroneous feeling of fatigue when we are flying just for a few hours? Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) tells how this can be accomplished, using conscious thoughts in a dedicated training program. The Magic, Error, and Terror book has the details.
The solution doesn't sound very practical, does it? We just want to fly a few hours without suffering from fatigue, and training with CBT seems over the top.
Friend Chuck had a suggestion during a recent biennial flight review. He had learned about the following method. When fatigue sets in, put a grape into your mouth, manipulate it for an extended period of several minutes, then bite on it, chew, and swallow. Repeat the process until the fatigue disappears.
It seems that the method works because each grape supplies a small sugar boost, which in turn helps overcome the fatigue. But is this the correct explanation? Maybe the manipulation of each grape in the mouth plays the key role?
Indeed, complex neuroprocesses participate in the manipulation of each grape in the mouth and output the tactile sensation, the squashing of the grape, the chewing, and the sweet taste. That output pushes the fatigue output of other neuroprocesses into the background.
The method has one shortcoming. Each grape supplies not only sugar, but also some acid. Essentially, while this process goes on, the teeth are immersed in a slightly acidic bath. Not good for the tooth enamel, one would say.
Here is an alternative. Instead of the grapes, use nuts of a superior trail mix. There should be no raisins, peanuts, or sunflower seeds, just first-rate unsalted and roasted nuts such as almonds, cashews, pecan nuts, walnuts, macadamia nuts, and so on.
Pop one of the nuts into your mouth and swish it around. Use the teeth to gradually shave off some material. Keep on doing this until at some point the nut becomes soft and breaks up. Chew it carefully, and swallow. This process takes about five minutes for each nut. The method doesn't introduce sugar or acid, but does supply a small amount of energy and also some fiber.
Lo and behold, this process defeats fatigue. It usually eliminates the fatigue within 15-20 minutes, thus requiring three to four nuts.
Isn't it interesting how neuroscience explains how we can defeat a possibly deadly aspect of cross-country flying with some simple action?
Have any questions or feedback about fighting fatigue? Please share your thoughts in the comments.
Thanks for the suggestion Barbara and I plan to use it on our road trip up to North Carolina!
ReplyDeleteWould be nice if you added another comment later, telling about your experience.
DeleteMy dad was a pilot of the B29 out of Saipan in WWII. Before they had secured Iwo Jima, which offered an alternative half way between Saipan and Tokyo, they lost several B29s that ran out of fuel on the 18-hour non-stop flights. He told a story of one trip in which he told tha co-pilot to take over while he took a nap on the way back to Saipan. when he woke up a while later, the whole area was covered by very low clouds and mist. He looked over at the co-pilot who had fallen asleep. The plane did have an auto pilot so it had held a course, but they had no idea where the island was. Finally, just by luck he saw the field's rotating light beacon flashing above the mist layer. Just luck, or I wouldn't be here.
ReplyDelete