Light Aviation and Flight Safety : Monitoring System for Unpressurized

The majority of light aviation aircrafts cabins are unpressurized and this may pose risks for the safety of both pilots and passengers. As altitude increases partial oxygen pressure decreases and this situation may lead to early stages of hypoxia affecting pilot’s capabilities to perform simple tasks. These factors combined in several ways may affect significantly the capability of a pilot to conduct a safe flight. Some work has been developed in this area and results show that even small changes in altitude can decrease pilot’s oxygen level significantly. Thus, as pilot’s behavior and flying capabilities are affected, flight safety is compromise too. This work is generally focused on the acquisition and study of flight operational and physiological data that may affect pilot’s capabilities and thus flight safety. To perform such objectives data acquired from the aircraft contains several items such as geographic coordinates, attitude, altitude, speed, g-load, heading, absolute pressure and temperature inside the cabin; also data acquired from the pilot contains several parameters such as cerebral oximetry, electroencephalography (EEG) and electrocardiography (ECG). As pilot’s own