Roger,
I did the same thing this spring w/ my battery/temp guages in my truck, for
gods sake! Been driving this rig, often long distances, for almost four
years; couldn't understand why my engine temp kept dropping as the trip went
on.
"Brain fart" is what a friend calls it, and as you say, in an airplane it
can kill you, and is usually a product of fatigue, but also a distracted
mind as in my case; I was preoccupied with a problem outside the present.
Having experienced such a shift, I'm slightly more capable of analyzing a
puzzling circumstance, at least when I'm rested, warm, dry and concentrating
on the task at hand! lol

Brad Snow
s/v Aldonza



"Roger Long" wrote in message
news
Right after this happened, I was telling myself that I was never going to
tell a soul and glad that I was alone on board. Later, I realized that, if
it had happened in an airplane, I would have been posting it immediately
in one of the aviation groups. Pilots spend a lot more time thinking and
talking about safety than boaters. Back (not very far back) when I was
flying planes, I was very interested in the human factors. So, in the
spirit of aviation, here is this story which illustrates some of them:

Http://home.maine.rr.com/rlma/Sailing0606.htm

When I was flying, I noticed that my best performance was usually when a
late passenger or other delay gave me time to hang around the plane doing
a leisurely preflight and just getting into the mental space of flying.
This shows that it applies to boats, at least in the other extreme.

It also shows the insidious effects of cold and discomfort which begin
creating mental tunnel vision and deteriorating performance well before
the onset of actual hypothermia.

I haven't had a lot of experiences like this on the water. My first
thought when I got settled down and on course again was that I had
experience exactly the state of mind many pilots were in just before they
took a perfectly functioning and on-course aircraft and either flew it out
of control or into a mountain. It can happen on the water too.

--

Roger Long