Human Brain and Pilot Awareness

Please wait for this pioneering article ....

Thank you very much indeed for your patience. This month my topic is on the relationship between the development of our perceptions in the brain and the pilots' awareness in the flight. In fact, how the brain functions is still a secret to the scientists.

Recently from the journals such as the Scientist, the American Scientists, the Discovery, I have found the increasing attention has been paid to the development of hippocampus due to the discovery of DNA. The neuro-scientists set the simulation of human brain in the labs in order to explore how our conscience is developed. One of the most important findings is that the hippocampus creates new cells everyday and are dead if they have not been used. That is, we can learn all new things if we want to, but most of us seldom use our brain. The new cells will be faded and dead after about 5-7 days. This is the reason physicians believe the hippocampus is the major region of the brain to suffer damage in Alzheimer's disease.

It is also believed that the hippocampus controls our long term memory and spacial navigation. Therefore, the pilots should realize that if they seldom learn new knowledge in the flight. Their rooted beliefs may lead them to the wrong decision making when they are in risky situations. They lost the ability of awareness because of the faded function of hippocampus in our brain. As a result, the pilots should always challenge themselves to learn new things which need to use the higher order cognitive skills.

越是危險或壓力大的飛行任務,越需要審慎的飛行計畫及訓練.現在台灣的飛行員應該戒除今朝有酒今朝醉或即時行樂的想法,少一點party多一些reading,多學習航空新知才能保障自己的安全. Party辦太多很難不出事的 ...有時候我覺得台灣(軍事)飛行員真的樂昏過頭了, BBQ party真的好像太多了...

我在美國佛羅里達州理工學院進修時,大部份研究所的同學都是飛行員甚至是飛行教官,他們利用在職進修的方式繼續深造,所具備的專業知識令人佩服,課堂表現也相當夠水準.例如有一次的期末研究報告的題目是Mars Missions, 當時我覺得這種題目很有趣但似乎有點太科幻,沒想到兩年之後NASA將無人太空船成功發射航向火星, 如果我沒記錯其中某一同學的報告的話, 從地球到火星以現在的科技約需三年往返地球及火星.我們還討論了好久如何讓太空船以資源循環的方式使太空人能夠生存許多年, 因為這不是太空站只要多載一些太空食物然後幾個月後將垃圾及排泄物載回地球, 而飛往火星的太空船不可能裝滿食物, 也就是必需將太空人呼出的二氧化碳給植物進行光合作用, 排出的糞便及尿當做養份, 植物進行光合作用後產生的養氣及食物再提供給太空人. 我們所討論的議題最近NASA也建了模擬太空船實驗太空人在外太空生活多年的情況.

比較台灣及美國的飛行教育, 您的啟發為何呢?