Investigation of occurrence and influencing factors of flight illusions among army helicopter pilots in cold regions

Abstract

Objective To investigate the occurrence of flight illusions and explore its influencing factors and countermeasures in army aviators in cold regions. Methods Comprehensive Flight Illusion Scale was applied to investigate flight illusions, related influencing factors and countermeasures among 74 army aviators in cold regions from December 2022 to February 2023. SPSS 22.0 statistics was used for statistical analysis to compare the differences among variables and identify the influencing factors of flight illusions. Results For the 74 issued questionnaires, all of them were retrieved validly, with a rate of 100%. The incidence rate of flight illusions was 32.43%. There was a statistical difference between flight time and the occurrence of flight illusions (P < 0.05). There were 3 types of flight illusions with higher incidences in cold regions, that is distance illusion (20.27%), tilt illusion (18.92%) and relative position illusion (16.22%). The 3 flight illusions with relatively lower incidences were detachment phenomenon (4.05%), rotational illusion (4.05%), and inverted flight illusion (2.70%). After occurrence of illusions, 66.67% of the aviators experienced symptoms such as tension, "hard-to-move lever" headache, dizziness and post-flight insomnia. Almost all of the aviators were of fully awareness and acceptance of the active approaches to dealing with flight illusions, but still 50% of them believed that passive waiting intervention measures could be used. The results of statistical analysis on related influencing factors indicated that statistical differences were observed in all the listed items except flight subject with the occurrence of flight illusions (P < 0.05). Conclusion During short period flight in cold regions in winter, army aviators experience obvious psychological and physiological reactions after occurrence of flight illusions, and their anxiety and fatigue state, external climate and landform environment, and cabin interface and flight parameters are all related to the occurrence.

Keywords

• cold regions
• army aviators
• helicopter
• flight illusions
• influencing factors