How much good research has been done into flying under the influence as opposed to driving research being extrapolated into aviation?
To play Devil's advocate for a moment, aren't there substantial differences between the tasks and reactions required by car drivers and pilots? In that car drivers often experience what amounts to close formation flying for hours at a time (equivalent to half a car's width/wingspan on multi-lane roads) or head-on traffic avoidance with scant inches of clearance, often at very high combined speeds and in the dark/poor vis and with an absence of visual references that would terrify any pilot. There is virtually nothing that pilots experience that requires continuous, repeated and extended instant speed/distance judgements, rather sitting there trying not to get the leans if hand flying, nothing closer than a mile or two/1000ft and a buddy to keep them out of trouble. Even landing is imo a far less taxing "instant decision" phase than driving on a 2 lane road with oncoming traffic, and it is that instant control/judgement loop that alcohol strongly affects.
I'm not talking about emergencies, just routine flying which is what the stats will depend on. Even so damn few emergencies in the air result in the sort of instant and dire difficulties a dui would experience with, say a tyre blowing on the 2 lane road...Of course pilots under the influence are degraded, I just suspect they are far less degraded in practice than the layman would imagine.
We are, after all, expected to have brains like razors and perfect eagle-vision unlike granny in her Fiesta - yet she stays out of trouble on the roads most of the time. Why?
Last edited by Agaricus bisporus; 11th Nov 2014 at 12:12.