Reaction Time

[turboplanner]

I recently read an accident report of a tiger moth which had stalled when the pilot attempted to turn back to the airfield after an engine failure. His reaction time was calculated to be several seconds - longer than the time taken to develop the stall, so mathematically he didn't stand a change.

 

Some fliers and racers develop scenarios in their mind so when an emergency happens the reaction is subconscious.

 

Try this link to check your reaction time to a known task, the average car driver's brake reaction to a known red light is .500 seconds

 

Try it when you are fit, after a sleepless night, after 1 drink, 2 drinks etc. For me an just evening meal slowed me right down!

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sleep/sheep/reaction_version5.swf

 

 

[turboplanner]

I'm staggered at the variations in performance. After a heavy meal was missing targets, an hour later..top gun.

 

 

[geoffreywh]

hmmmm. it's 1am and I'm knakkered having just driven 300 kilometers, but I got 0.240 secs. average ( First time,) not bad for 64 years!......Just goes to show what taildraggers do to your reaction times.....

 

 

[Guest Brett Campany]

It's 1246am, had bugger all sleep but feeling ok, averaged 0.2556.

 

 

[turboplanner]

I got 0.191 when sharp and 1 minute plus after a main mealdue to jump penalties and one sheep getting away, 0.288 early morning session

 

 

[Captain]

0.252 but felt better after rack-of-lamb & veggies last night.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Donkey, may have been biorhythmitis. Have another go at a different time.

 

 

[Captain]

BAHHHH!!!! Stupid game... who wants to play it anyway!

Don't look at the sheep, Donk. Just look for or sense the "movement".

 

Use the "force" Luke, use the "force".

 

An interesting game, it is.

 

But "biorythmitis"??? Geez Tubb. Youze must have been well edakated in Geelong. I thought that was when the cows can't give milk.

 

 

[Tomo]

Eerr well third time after two disqualifications:sad:.... 0.2238

 

 

[turboplanner]

But "biorythmitis"??? Geez Tubb. Youze must have been well edakated"

 

 

 

 

 

Mostly with a cane, Captain.

 

 

[Relfy]

From crash investigation at work, it is widely held that the average reaction time for a person driving in a built up area is 2 seconds compared to 3 for a country area.

 

 

[Guest palexxxx]

Woohoo, 0.1886

 

 

[Guest keeffe]

Reflexes

 

I had about 10 goes as to make it a programmed task. I got it down to .15 average.

 

Might keep practicing and get it lower

 

 

[turboplanner]

Relfy, wait two or three seconds in speedway and it's Come to Jesus time.

 

 

[Tomo]

Woohoo, 0.1886

After how many goes??

 

 

[Guest keeffe]

reaction

 

not bad for a 95 y/o drifter flyer :)

 

 

[ahlocks]

Sheep? What sheep:question:

 

 

[Relfy]

Turbo, hence the reason QLD has over 300 fatal car crashes per year.

 

 

[blueshed]

it's 4'44am, first go got .2498 then regressed before managing a .225.

 

Very interesting

 

Merry Christmas to All

 

Cheers Guy

 

 

[Derby]

yesss,0.153

 

 

[Guest palexxxx]

After how many goes??

Three

 

 

[turboplanner]

If you haven't been matching these supersonic times, don't get discouraged - this is only a small part of taking corrective action.

 

Derby, Tomo and champ to date Keefe have reaction times which would see them qualify as a Formula 1 drivers (if they had the other 99 qualifications like knowing how to optimise a corner), so they are oustanding.

 

Anyone faster than 50/100 of a second (0.5) is in the top half of the population, but importantly, anyone who is not may perform better than the above people by being smarter and faster at making decisions. For example you don't need fast reflexes if you don't get into a scrape in the first place.

 

From my study of race drivers I found some leading drivers who were not particularly fast to react, but just never got into trouble, including one of the best who just spun into the infield at the first sign of a pile up. He was always lined up at the restarts.

 

On the other hand other drivers who earned about the same points at the end of the season were gung ho, fearless and stupid, escaping from harm many times because of lightning fast reflexes, but featuring regularly in the bingles.

 

 

[Guest palexxxx]

From my study of race drivers I found .

What study of race drivers is this?? Do you do that for your job or is it in an unofficial capacity?

 

 

[farri]

Bugger it,

 

I`ve never been a shepard, and thank god,I`ve never had to spear sheep while flying.

 

Cheers,everyone.

 

Frank.

 

 

[turboplanner]

palexxxx, I never carried out any formal tests, but raced against about 200 guys over 12 years and needed to know their habits for self presevation and deciding where on the track to pass them. Some could respond instantly, others gave up, still others were mobile grenades and totally unpredictable.

 

I was also President of an Association with 1300 drivers - all A type personalities in about 20 car classes got to investigate a lot of incidents and trends including fatalities along with an inside seat at the subsequent corrective actions which ranged from penalties on drivers to changes in regulations or track specifications. Our work was so detailed that an Australiuan carried out US track inspections.

 

One key observation which came out of this work was the importance of behaviour, or attitude in safety. Fatalities had begun to occcur in one particular car class, and although track surfaces and car specifications were blamed by that class, a detailed analysis indicated that the Chief Stewards were allowing the drivers to get their blood up to an emotional level and generally behave like a bunch of road ragers. I picked up the serious trend when, while stepping a video of a fatal incident I noticed that the driver's car was out accelerating the field while pointed sideways; he was being pushed to his death by another driver, while in the background of the incident two other drivers were bashing into each other uniterested in what they were about to crash into.

 

A couple of months later the evening news featured another incident where a driver was seriously injured and I recall levitating out of the lounge chair, phoning the mentor of that class and turning the air blue with what I was going to do if the class didn't forget the tracks and the specifications and get some new Chief Stewards. The bad behaviour ended immediately and there hasn't been a fatality since.

 

I was also able to study driver safety as chairman of an Appeals Tribunal where evidence was given which would leave Hans Christian Anderson, the Brothers Grymme and Walt Disney in the dust.

 

It's interesting in the light of the trend to speed cameras on our roads that we never asked anyone to slow down, and the top classes were achieving lap times of around 11 seconds for four corners and two straights where the terminal velocities were up to 180 km/hr with around 20 cars side by side in a bunch but obtained our safety record by zero alchohol, rollcages and driver restraint, behaviour control, removal of all condensed objects (poles, stationary objects) from the immediate area, and adding a deflective barrier (solid concrete fence).

 

The other key element was to prevent vehicles of different sizes and speeds racing against each other, resulting in each class becoming experienced in what each car was likely to do next to them - a facet of safety we've recently been discussing in these forums.

 

While it isn't possible to maintain a perfect standard all of the time, and nor is it possible to guarantee a new trend won't happen tomorrow, in Victoria we haven't had a single driver fatality in over 40 years - zero, and the last bike rider died in the 1980's.

 

The key was identifying that safety was complex;there was no single action where you could say, for example "slow down" and the accidents could end.

 

Incidentally, getting back to reaction times TQ racecars (Three Quarter Midgets) the predecessors of Formula 500, because of their low costs drew big crowded fields and there were several fatalities which occurred when someone at the front got crossed up, drivers behind braked sharply and the tail enders couldn't react in time and piled up on them.

 

In some brilliant lateral thinking it was realised that it would be safer to use the reaction time to get around the incident, since almost always the braking distance was too short anyway.

 

The rules were change to ourlaw foot brakes and fit hand operated brakes to the rear wheels only, and from that time on if you saw trouble ahead you flicked the steering wheel which sent you off in a different trajectory, sometimes into the deflective fence, sometimes into the infield, but mostly around the incident, and that's ben one of the major factors in ending fatalities for about 45 years.