Your Lizard Brain

[Colonel]

I spend a lot of time, teaching stick
and rudder skills which are considered
"advanced" these days, but are actually
very basic and form the foundation of
any pilot's skill.  Ah, the irony.

Anyways, before I take off, I talk about
the dangers of adverse yaw at slow speeds
and high alpha.  And every student agrees
that trying to pick up a dropping wing with
aileron is not a good idea, because the
adverse yaw will worsen the incipient spin.

All well and good.  Until we stall, and a wing
drops, and they always always always pick
up the dropping with aileron, and off we go
into a spin.

Why is this?  This actually has absolutely
nothing to do with aviation, and everything
to do with medical stuff - specifically how your
brain is wired.

The problem is that although at a higher level
your cognitive brain realizes that picking up
the wing with aileron is bad, things are happening
too fast for that part of your brain to observe,
process the input, make a decision, and perform
an output.

Your lizard brain takes over, and it reflexively
does very bad things.

This is also true for trying to keep a tailwheel
aircraft straight on the runway with your feet.

This is also true on takeoff, when the nose goes
left and people crank the control yoke right.

Sigh.

I spend a lot of time, trying to teach people's
lizard brains new reflexes.  This is required to
land a tailwheel aircraft, fly formation (esp
negative G), etc.

I suspect the lizard brain of the left seater of
Colgan 3407 took over when the speed bled
off, the nose dropped, and he badly wanted
the nose to go up.  Full back on the column,
with enormous force.  His lizard brain at
work.

Anyways, it's important to realize that under
stress, people never rise to the occasion -
they sink to their lowest level of training,
which is your lizard brain.

For completeness' sake, I might mention
that some people, with extremely fast
reflexes, are able to cognitively process
input very very quickly and make intelligent
decisions in an amazingly short period of
time.

When I was younger, I used to ride 300 kph
sportbikes on the street with a very interesting
crowd.  Many of them crashed, but of the ones
that didn't, I suspect they had the ability to
enter a blind curve and within less than a
tenth of a second, observe, process, choose
alternative, and implement their decision.
Very impressive.

For more reading on this subject:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop

[Chuck Ellsworth]

Excellent topic Colonel, and I use fast repetitive training to reset the Lizzard brain reflex.

However I am concerned that getting banned on the other site has taken away some of your ability to explain things.....

...for instance your Lizzard brain takes over when you think you can get away with jumping a willing new conquest and not get caught.  :)

[DonutHole]

It's always surprising to me what the lizard brain does in stressful situations.

We all like to think that we would be cucumber  cool in shifty situations but as yet when outside the box happens, I have not been impressed with my actions.  Not in the realm of flying because I was schooled by some very strict instructors who would use physical negative reinforcement to drive home the lesson.  Having your hand slapped with a ruler, though seeming draconian and brutal, was actually a brilliant way to tune out the lizard brain reflex.  Instead of worrying about benign corrections in the aircraft the incoming slap somehow managed to empty the bucket enough to fly the manouvre properly.

I'm sure it wouldn't work for everybody but it certainly saved my bacon on one or two occasions

[jump154]

Lizard Brain in action -- the un-rideable bicycle.

[Napoleon So Low]

[quote author=Dick link=topic=160.msg430#msg430 date=1433254283]
Lizard Brain in action -- the un-rideable bicycle.
[/quote]

Wow, that was interesting and a beautiful illustration of this topic. Thanks for posting!

[Colonel]

This is what is so challenging
about negative G formation
aerobatics.

The effect of bank is reversed
with a -ve AOA.

So, to stay in position on the
lead, as you transition from +ve
to -ve to +ve to -ve G (which
has nothing to do with pitch
attitude) you must continually
reverse what you do with the
ailerons to maintain position
on the lead.

Four bars think that's stupid,
and that I know nothing about
formation.

[img][/img]

Not a photoshop, four bars.

[HiFlyChick]

...Not in the realm of flying because I was schooled by some very strict instructors who would use physical negative reinforcement to drive home the lesson.  Having your hand slapped with a ruler, though seeming draconian and brutal, was actually a brilliant way to tune out the lizard brain reflex.  Instead of worrying about benign corrections in the aircraft the incoming slap somehow managed to empty the bucket enough to fly the manouvre properly....

Hahaha - sounds like you were taught by nuns :D

My instructor did similar (but without the ruler) - gave a few verbal warnings then promptly "put" the aircraft back
where it belonged.  After being startled by being whipped back to the heading I was supposed to be on (and had
wandered off of several times), I managed to hold it without a problem after that