Stress In The Cockpit

True story: A USAF F-105 Thunderchief pilot was shot down over North Vietnam, ejected and landed in the jungle. Coming up on his emergency radio, he was told a rescue mission was on the way, to hide out and to come back up on the frequency in an hour. The pilot waited for what seemed like an hour and called back; he once again was told to call back when the hour was up-in 55 more minutes.

Key Dismukes

Wednesday, April 24, 2019 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

Stress significantly impairs pilots' cognitive functions by reducing working memory capacity and disrupting attention control, leading to common errors in comprehension, task management, action omission, and communication.
Automatic cognitive processing, developed through extensive practice, is far less vulnerable to stress compared to slow, effortful conscious processing, making proficiency crucial for critical skills.
Pilots can counter the adverse effects of stress by maintaining high currency and proficiency (practicing to automaticity), mentally rehearsing emergency procedures, aggressively managing workload, deliberately slowing down actions, and utilizing controlled breathing techniques.

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Stressful situations are not limited to combat aviation and affect far more than just time perception. Pilots of all stripes encounter challenging situations ranging from the dire (an in-flight fire), to the threatening (ice accumulation during descent) to the social (struggling through a difficult check flight). How we handle the stress can be just as important as how we handle the challenge.