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Human Performance Engineering Practice
Case Studies:
Analyzing G-Induced Loss of Consciousness (G-LOC) in
Military Aircraft
________________________________________________Challenge
High-performance aircraft, such as tactical fighters, allow maneuvers that exceed the limits of the human body due to gravitational- or G-effects. Beyond the obvious safety effects of G-induced loss of consciousness (GLOC), almost loss of consciousness (ALOC) can result in serious aircrew physiological and cognitive performance decrements.
Current centrifuge training doesn’t address this problem, so aircrews need to know that aircrew performance can be affected even when consciousness is not completely lost in a high-G tactical aviation environment.
Understanding the effects of GLOC and ALOC was the first major step to identifying technologies and techniques to alleviate these effects on current and future high performance aircraft aircrew. The Department of Defense engaged CHI Systems’ Human Performance Engineering Practice to apply their expertise in flight crew safety and survivability to this problem.
Result
The Human Performance Engineering Practice attacked the problem by first conducting extensive searches of Navy and Air Force Safety Center’s databases on flight safety.
Then, they analyzed GLOC and ALOC incidents. The results of the analysis led to in-depth interviews with senior commanders, operational squadron personnel, flight instructors, and aviation medicine personnel.
The team used the combined data to design and carry out experiments that collected and analyzed new centrifuge data to test the impact of various interventions (physical alarms, repeated G exposure, G suit deflation rates, and less than +1Gz post-GLOC) on the reduction of GLOC/ALOC incapacitation duration rates.
The final product was a set of recommendations for improving tactical aircrew centrifuge training:
- Introduce more realistic centrifuge-based GLOC training
- Standardize centrifuge based training syllabi and policies across all the services
- Create an additional Navy centrifuge training site
- Develop and implement an improved training syllabus for the Air Force and Navy aeromedical community
For More Information
Deaton, J., Mitchell, T., & Tripp, L. (2001). Enhanced recovery of aircrew from acceleration induced loss of consciousness (GLOC). Proceedings of the 11th International Symposium on Aviation Psychology. Columbus, OH. March 3-6.
Tripp, L., Albery, W., Matthews, G., Chiu, P., Deaton, J., & Warm, J. (2002). Adaptation to +Gz loss of consciousness: Inner psychophysics. Proceedings of the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology. Nashville, TN. March 28-30.
Tripp, L., Warm, J., Matthews, G., Chiu, P., Deaton, J., & Albery, W. +Gz acceleration loss of consciousness: Time course of performance deficits with repeated experience. Proceedings of the 46th Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. Baltimore, MD: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.
