Originally Posted by
Onceapilot
Hmmm, I am guessing that the situation here has considerable ramifications for Law?
It does seem to raise doubt over whether the display pilot of a high-performance aircraft could ever be found culpably negligent. Anyone who’s taken a passenger flying in a fast jet knows how utterly overwhelming the experience can be for the senses and the cognitive ability of the untrained human brain; it’s a truism that we were built for 1g straight and level. Training and experience can overcome that to a greater or lesser extent, but the record shows that even trained and experienced pilots have sometimes found themselves unaware of impending disaster. If all it takes to escape the charge of negligence is to cite the possibility that decision-making was impaired by temporary reduction of blood flow to the brain (something that happens as a matter of course during high-performance manoeuvring) then the only controls available on such activity are of the sort we’ve seen since Shoreham: much tighter constraints on flying to minimise the impact of ‘inevitable’ accidents.