Hawker:-
"Fight or flight" refers to a physiological reaction. In an emergency, the human body produces masses of adrenalin. This increases the heart rate, increases the flow of blood to the muscles, and increases the respiration rate. Sweating is also increased, digestion slowed, and sugar is released from the liver.
Basically, the body is preparing itself for violent action, whether to stand up to danger, or do its darnedest to get away from it.
As you may conclude, not a very useful phenomenon for a pilot presented with an in-flight emergency. It's what we're left with from fighting sabre-toothed tigers a few hundreds of thousands of years ago.
It can result in tunnelling of vision, "red mist", systems shutting down, all sorts of things we don't really want when we're supposed to be getting the aircraft, passengers and crew down safely.
But we have to realise it's there, and account for it.
Chuks:- one small, pedantic point - "nothing on the clock but the maker's name" refers to the altimeter. So if you're at FL300, something is mechanically wrong!
