Originally Posted by
Treble one
Judge Edis told the jury that it must decide if the prosecution had proved cognitive impairment had not affected Mr Hill during the flight.
I have been making this point to a number of my non-aviation friends, who have asked my opinion of the verdict. The reality is that having set the threshold this high it would have been virtually impossible for the prosecution to have persuaded 10 of the remaining 11 jurors beyond reasonable doubt that cognitive impairment had not affected the pilot.
I do, however, have a personal problem with the use of cognitive impairment as a defence. In my own experience (20+ years of domestic and international aerobatic competition and display flying - all piston engine singles) I have suffered from cognitive impairment in different forms on a number of occasions and witnessed it on many more. For me this has ranged from "black out" (often wrongly confused with G-LOC) - where all vision is lost but you have the remaining four sense intact - through to complete loss of consciousness. In the case of the former, vision is normally restored after a few seconds provided the G loading is reduced through elevator input. In the case of the latter, which happened to me after an aggressive "sleeper" combination (high negative G figures followed immediately by high positive G), the stick is always released as it is "loaded" by reason of the positive G. What happens next depends on how the aircraft is trimmed, how quickly the pilot wakes up...and how high you are.
My difficulty is this: you only push the envelope, which was when I had my own impairment experiences, at altitude in as safe an environment as possible. This does not include low level, public aerobatic displays.
As pilot in command we all accept that we have responsibility for the safe undertaking of any flight. As aerobatic pilots we are acutely aware of the risks we are exposing both ourselves and others to. This includes the risk of cognitive impairment whether caused by poor sequence design, poor execution, physical condition (which may include lack of current G tolerance) or state of mind. If there is any doubt at all about anything you are doing in this context, you simply don't do it. Or accept the consequences.