Stress/Anxiety Driven Accidents

son_of_flubber wrote on 3/4/2018 12:04 PM:
On Saturday, March 3, 2018 at 6:30:09 AM UTC-5, soarin wrote:

With a heart rate elevated to 115-145 BPM,
complex motor skills, visual reaction times and cognitive reaction times
are at their peak. However, between 145-175 mental and physical
performance begins to suffer dramatically.

I've no problem with the general idea, but since the author suggests the use of a heart rate monitor to measure stress level in the cockpit, I question the applicability of these specific numbers to pilots of different ages and fitness levels.

Talking averages... A 70 year old pilot would have a maximum heart rate of 220 - 70 = 150 bpm. I'd guess that he would experience debilitating stress well below 145 bpm. A 20 year old pilot would have a maximum heart rate of 220 - 20 = 200 bpm.

I'm not trying to say anything authoritative. I'm just questioning the numbers presented.

Source for calculation of maximum heart rate:

https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-l...-20046887?pg=2

"to calculate your maximum heart rate is to subtract your age from 220. For example, if you're 45 years old, subtract 45 from 220 to get a maximum heart rate of 175."

The heart rate you calculate is for exercising purposes - a way of giving you a
safe rate to plan your exercising without a medical exam or stress test. I very
much doubt the number is useful for the panic/fear stress we are talking about.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1
- "Transponders in Sailplanes - Dec 2014a" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarm

http://soaringsafety.org/prevention/...anes-2014A.pdf