Spatial Disorientation In Flight

"Flying an aircraft is a challenging activity that exposes pilots to many potential hazards. One of the most significant of these is spatial disorientation. Spatial disorientation is a condition where the pilot is unable to correctly interpret aircraft attitude, altitude or airspeed in relation to the Earth. The resulting disorientation can lead to a loss of control of the aircraft. [...] The ATSB report explains that the chances of a spatial disorientation event occurring in flight can be reduced by a series of simple preventive measures, many of which can be attended to before flight. These include flying when fit and well to do so, not flying under the influence of alcohol or medications, avoiding visual flight rules into instrument meteorological conditions, increasing awareness of spatial disorientation illusions and planning for their possible appearance at different stages of flight in the pre-flight planning process."--Publisher's website.

"It has been known for many years that aircrew suffer from false sensations and perception of aircraft motion and these illusions may hazard the safety of the aircraft and its occupants. Yet, despite the many papers in the technical literature which deal with differing aspects of the problem of spatial disorientation there are few which are comprehensive and none provide the non-specialist reader with an explanation of the causes of the sensory illusions which reflect contemporary biological and medical knowledge. The text which follows was prepared in an attempt to redress this deficiency."--Preface.

True faith is hard. More than mere sentimentalism, faith often calls for a deep and resilient trust in God—especially when the going gets tough and the road is dark. In Things Not Seen, author Jon Bloom encourages readers with 35 imaginative retellings of stories from the Bible that illustrate the importance of living by faith. A follow-up to the author's previous book, Not by Sight: A Fresh Look at Old Stories of Walking by Faith, this inspiring volume explores the lives of Abraham, Moses, Saul, John the Baptist, and more—helping readers remember God's promises, rely on his grace, and follow his leading regardless of the circumstances. The book includes a foreword by popular author and blogger Ann Voskamp.

"Continued VFR into IFR conditions," the non-instrument-rated pilot's worst-case scenario, persists as the most frequent cause of weather-related accidents. In this landmark book, Richard Taylor provides VFR pilots with an emergency reserve of basic IFR capability, the bare-boned essentials of instrument flying technique and procedures so urgently needed to cope with and survive an inadvertent encounter with low-visibility IFR conditions.

Vision is the dominant sense used by pilots and visual misperception has been identified as the primary contributing factor in numerous aviation mishaps, resulting in hundreds of fatalities and major resource loss. Despite physiological limitations for sensing and perceiving their aviation environment, pilots can often make the required visual judgments with a high degree of accuracy and precision. At the same time, however, visual illusions and misjudgments have been cited as the probable cause of numerous aviation accidents, and in spite of technological and instructional efforts to remedy some of the problems associated with visual perception in aviation, mishaps of this type continue to occur. Clearly, understanding the role of visual perception in aviation is key to improving pilot performance and reducing aviation mishaps. This book is the first dedicated to the role of visual perception in aviation, and it provides a comprehensive, single-source document encompassing all aspects of aviation visual perception. Thus, this book includes the foundations of visual and vestibular sensation and perception; how visual perceptual abilities are assessed in pilots; the pilot's perspective of visual flying; a summary of human factors research on the visual guidance of flying; examples of specific visual and vestibular illusions and misperceptions; mishap analyses from military, commercial and general aviation; and, finally, how this knowledge is being used to better understand visual perception in aviation's next generation. Aviation Visual Perception: Research, Misperception and Mishaps is intended to be used for instruction in academia, as a resource for human factors researchers, design engineers, and for instruction and training in the pilot community.