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Hi Keith
Good timing with this newsletter. I’m flying this evening! :-0 The information will be fresh in my head when I’m feeling strange movements.
E.B. London
Here’s an excerpt from the newsletter
For thousands of years the fastest anyone travelled was probably on a horse so for ages we knew three speeds; 4 miles an hour walking, 15 miles an hour running and whatever a horse could manage.
Therefore our bodies developed in line with those speeds. The balancing system in our ears is set for those speeds. The balancing system is connected to our eyes, we know that because running with our eyes closed is almost impossible, even if we know the way is clear. Of course blind athletes are a wonderful exception to that statement.
The other thing humans do is to face the way we’re going…and there’s a reason for this as well…it aligns our visual clues with the sensory ones, or more simply it connects what we see with what we feel.
Together they let us know where ‘up’ is. When we know where ‘up’ is, our muscles and the rest of our body can work in the way it was designed to.
Our eyes give us the most information. We know that because our eyes can detect the tiniest deviation from upright. That’s why we can see a picture is not hanging properly even without using a builder’s spirit level.
So what has all this to do with flying? Here’s a short list
On a plane we look sideways out of the window
On a plane we’re travelling at 600 miles an hour
On a plane we can’t see many things to tell us which way is up or level.
continued…………………….
Captain Keith
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