Avoiding Black Holes Pilot Gateways

Question: Describe about the Avoiding Black Holes from Pilot Gateways. Answer: Black hole Illusion impact on aviation safety. The black holes illusion happens on night with the no moonlight or stars over unlighted terrain or water. At runways those are lightened but horizon is not visible, black-hole illusion happen. Black-hole illation is legendary in pilots community because it is generally avoidable and rare. Because majority pilots of general aviation not flown in black illusion conditions because of the it is rare. Conditions those cause it are often transients it can be avoidable. Its like they say about the weather in New Hampshire.[ Airbus Customer Services, 2005] In black hole illusion there is absolutely no visual reference to judge where they are. It results because of absence of visual reference or alteration of the visual reference, which will modify perception of pilot about their position (in the terms of distance, incept angle, height) relative to runways threshold. Black hole illusion affects the situational awareness of flight crew, particularly during final approach. Black hole illusion usually induces crew input that causes the aircraft to deviate from horizontal flight path or vertical flight path. Black hole illusion affect the decisions process of how rapidly and when to descend from minimum descent height or altitude. Discuss different variable that may affect the onset and strength of the Black hole illusion during landing. Black hole is when flying into an airport at night that has little surrounding features to help guide pilot to touchdown. For the pilots having less experience, this means that theres nothing around the airport to judge distance and height to the runway. Pilots dont even realize how much they use visual cues to judge approach that until they are gone. Factors affect the strength of black hole during landing are-:[ Schiff B.] Depth /Shape/Size Constancy: Runways that appear to be long and narrow produce a feeling to be too steep on the retinal image shape and size. Normally long and narrow runways are seen when a pilot is far and high from a runways. The ability of a pilot to use perceptual constancy as a cue is greatly reduced because it is difficult to relate the 2D retinal image to a 3D object due to lack of ambient vision cues. Lack of Familiar/Relative Size: Featureless terrain lacks both global and local objects for retinal size comparison removing the ability to confirm accurate retinal size. Over-estimate Visual Angles in the Medial Extent: Prior knowledge of a long runway conflicts with apparently smaller visual angle in medial extent. The result is an over-estimation of medial visual angles based on retinal image combined with the knowledge of its actual length in depth. Consequently bias to perceive the runway image as longer than it actual is furthest promotes the appearance of it relative to the size/shape/ depth constancy and contributes to an error. Lack of the terrains orientation Cues: Lack of the global and local objects or terrains features fail for produces perception of runway like surface plane on ground. That lack of the orientation allows runway to float by making it a difficult for determine approaching height of aircraft above ground, distance to runway, and proper perception of depth. Finally, terrain orientation is vital for the perception of the array of adjoining surfaces Lack of distance cues Related with previously mentioned hypothesis, in the absence of distance cues the depth/shape/size constancy of runway cant be properly perceive. Optical slant versus geographical slat Geographic slants, slop of terrain, involve both optical slants and perception of angular position or height. Since distance, depth and orientation cues are absent, geographic slant cannot be perceived resulting in optical slant as the sole remaining cue to actual slant. Optical slant however is based on line- of sight relative to the surface and the surface is not available during a black hole approach: thud, optical slant is not an adequate cue. Approach lighting systems Approach lighting system was developed to extend the runway environment towards the pilot during the transition from instrument to visual conditions in low visibility environments. Acquiring the runway image and flying a night visual approach to landing using the approach lighting system in good visibility at night however may perceptually increase the apparent runway ratio, causing the runway to appear narrower. Thus, further promoting the feeling a steep PAD and may result in initiation of excessive descent enrooted to a dangerously enrooted a dangerously shallow approach. Equidistance tendency This equidistance tendency occurs when objects appearing together are perceived at the same distance when other visuals cues are absent. For slanted in depth objects, the equidistance favors the foreshortened, frontal plane resulting in a perception of the slant over the estimation. That explanation relates the lack of distance cue and familiar the relative size cue.[ Dale Wilson, 2004] Illustrate your answer with reference to an accident or incident caused by the Black Hole illusion during landing On 22 January 2005, instrument rated [Beechcraft Bonaza pilot with his passengers] were killed due to crash on their final approach in Brownwood, Texas at the Brownwood Regional Airport due to night condition. At 6:42 morning on Runway 35 during entering into airport Bonaza hits trees and power line. Airplane was about at 3 mile oath and 500 feet from airport and heading north noticed by a witness that was present at there. According to one more witness sky was clear but there was no light and surrounding was dark and wind was calm at that time. At time of accident weather conditions was sky clear, 57 degree F temperature, wind 360 at 9 knot,45 deg. F dew point and 10 statutes mile visibility. Witnesses of the accident said that it was dark, sky was clear and the winds were calm. Investigator investigated that airport was visible clearly at up to height of 40 feet, but airplane was at 150 - 200 feet from ground. Because of lack of sloping terrain and lighting, pilot experience a sensation known as black hole because of no visual horizons. The NTSB described reason of accident was failure of pilot to properly maintain clearance and altitude during final approach. By contributing factor included pilot lack of the visuals approach, the lighting condition, and lack of the familiarity with airport, glide slope indications and the spatial disorientation. References Dale Wilson, 2004 Avoiding Black Holes, Pilot Getaways, Visited 13 Sep 2016, Available: https://pilotgetaways.com/mag/fal04/black-holes Airbus Customer Services, 2005, Flight operations Briefing Notes, Blangac Codex, France, Visited 13 Sep 2016, Available: https://www.airbus.com/fileadmin/media_gallery/files/safety_library_items/AirbusSafetyLib_-FLT_OPS-HUM_PER-SEQ11.pdf Schiff B., Black Hole Approach, Smartcockpit, Version 01, Visited 13 Sep 2016, Available: https://www.smartcockpit.com/docs/The_Black_Hole_Approach.pdf