Rick Ansell wrote: > From memory G-Induced Loss of Consciousness (GLOC) is the 'new' > problem - this is caused by the rapid onset of G. Blackout is > progressive and therefore gives a warning. GLOC is sudden and occurs 4 > to 6 seconds after the manoeuvre. Its insidious as short periods of > rapidly applied G don't trigger it - but rapid onset G, with the G > sustained for c.5 sec or more will cause it Proper straining > procedures by the aircrew can avoid it.
>From my reading of the link (which is great, btw, many thanks), these are actually the exactly same effect. The distinction based on "rapid onset" has to do with the eyeball. :) Apparently, the inner pressure of the eye (the thing that goes nuts when you have glaucoma) causes the retina to lose blood flow at a slightly lower G load than the brain. So, if you are increasing the G load slowly, you can pull until your eyesight starts failing, and then let up. This was the technique used in the old days, before the Falcons, Hornets and Sukhois arrived that could snap into a 9G turn from 1G within a second or two. The problem is that the tissue (both retina and brain, which are both just nerve bundles) contains enough oxygen to function for about 5 seconds without oxygen. So if the G load is not increasing slowly, you could pull past the eye limit and into the GLOC arena at essentially the same time. Now, your brain is failing at exactly the same time as your eyesight, and you don't have a chance to notice anything before you lose it. Game over. But the effect isn't any different -- it's just that the old trick for noticing the GLOC before it happens doesn't work as well with modern aircraft. Andy -- Andrew J. Ross NextBus Information Systems Senior Software Engineer Emeryville, CA [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.nextbus.com "Men go crazy in conflagrations. They only get better one by one." - Sting (misquoted) _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
