Safety systems in F1?

[Zico]

I watched a documentary on the five human senses last week which also contained a section on military helicopter flight safety where they tested a device known as a tactor(s) which are worn against the skin and vibrate at varying intensities depending on what sensors are used and for what parameters. Every year the military were having chopper crashes soley from pilot error from having so many sources of visual information to compute and failing to notice one of the less obvious but equaly as critical height, drift or orientation resulting in aprox ten fatal crashes each year.

They tested these tactors in a helicopter simulator, flying blind and guided soley by the vibrating info of the tactors programmed in this case for height and side drift, the pilot easily suceeded and remarked that it was like having a 6th sense.

It got me wondering if there could/should ever be a place for safety reasons within F1 for a device like this when the drivers have such a limited view and such a large blind spot that they do not always know when someone is there... It might sound a bit ridiculous at 1st but I was thinking of the Lewis/Webber incident in Singapore in particular. The limited vision the drivers have is clearly a problem. Anything that increases safety is always good until it interferes with what the sport is all about.. I suppose it could be set up as a back up side radar to detect what the mk1 eyeball missed or wasn't visable in the mirrors.

See http://www.eaiinfo.com/Tactor%20Products.htm

Your thoughts?.. any other possibilities that could be considered?

[tux]

Interesting Zico i can see this becoming adopted for all pilots, commercial, military etc. Maybe there is a market for this in Motorsport but i am unsure as to how succesfull it could be. Maybe you should try and develop it?

[TrapezeArtist]

If the FIA felt the motivation to have something like that developed and made mandatory, they could also find the motivation to make bigger mirrors with a proper field of view mandatory.

[Zico]

Originally Posted by TrapezeArtist

If the FIA felt the motivation to have something like that developed and made mandatory, they could also find the motivation to make bigger mirrors with a proper field of view mandatory.

Couldn't possibly argue with that..

[bjohnsonsmith]

Is this a form of cybernetics?

[Tall Chris]

Originally Posted by TrapezeArtist

If the FIA felt the motivation to have something like that developed and made mandatory, they could also find the motivation to make bigger mirrors with a proper field of view mandatory.

Way too simple and sensible, this is F1 after all

[TWRv12]

@ Zico

What was the name of the documentary?

[Mr.Jingles]

I wouldn't want this in my Single Seater - you can pick up alot of things from vibration through the seat, don't need anything that could mask that?

[Zico]

Originally Posted by TWRv12

@ Zico

What was the name of the documentary?

'Horizon, seeing is believing' The documentary as a whole is pretty interesting but the tactors part is at aprox 45 mins here...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...ing_Believing/

[Zico]

Originally Posted by Mr.Jingles

I wouldn't want this in my Single Seater - you can pick up alot of things from vibration through the seat, don't need anything that could mask that?

I can imagine... What about your chest area or sides?

[Zico]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

Is this a form of cybernetics?

Despite reading Wiki on the subject Im not really sure if it would come under cybernetics tbh... have a look at the documentary I linked above.