Aeronautical Terms beginning with H

Hazardous attitudes

Five aeronautical decision-making attitudes that may contribute to poor pilot judgment: anti-authority, impulsivity, invulnerability, machismo, and resignation.

Headwork

Required to accomplish a conscious, rational thought process when making decisions. Good decision-making involves risk identification and assessment, information processing, and problem solving.

Histotoxic hypoxia

The inability of cells to effectively use oxygen. Plenty of oxygen is being transported to the cells that need it, but they are unable to use it.

Human factors

A multidisciplinary field devoted to optimizing human performance and reducing human error. It incorporates the methods and principles of the behavioral and social sciences, engineering, and physiology. It may be described as the applied science which studies people working together in concert with machines. Human factors involve variables that influence individual performance, as well as team or crew performance.

Hypemic hypoxia

A type of hypoxia that is a result of oxygen deficiency in the blood, rather than a lack of inhaled oxygen. It can be caused by a variety of factors. Hypemic means “not enough blood.”.

Hyperventilation

Occurs when an individual is experiencing emotional stress, fright, or pain, and the breathing rate and depth increase, although the carbon dioxide level in the blood is already at a reduced level. The result is an excessive loss of carbon dioxide from the body, which can lead to unconsciousness due to the respiratory system’s overriding mechanism to regain control of breathing.

Hypoxia

A lack of sufficient oxygen reaching the body tissues.

Hypoxic hypoxia

This type of hypoxia is a result of insufficient oxygen available to the lungs. A decrease of oxygen molecules at sufficient pressure can lead to hypoxic hypoxia.