Echocardiographic Measurements of Cardiac Function on ROKAF F-4D Fighter Pilots before and soon after Four Types of Missions

Chung, Ki young

Abstract

BACKGROUND
The hostile environment experienced in flying high performance aircraft, including changes in acceleration, atmospheric pressure, vibration, and temperature, may affect cardiac function of the pilot. It is not known, however, whether different mission scenarios with different workloads and emotional stress would differentially affect the heart. To evaluate the effects of four different types of light missions on cardiac function, we analyzed echocardiograms of pilots that were recorded baseline and within 30 min. after flight.
METHODS
78 healthy male pilots (mean age 29 years, range 22-43) who fly high performance aircraft in F-4D fighter squadrons (SQs) were included in this study. Their mean F-4D flight time was 452 h (range 1 1690). These subjects were divided into four groups based on the type of mission they flew: combat air patrol mission (N=20, Group I), air to ground mission (N=19, Group II), air to air mission including combat maneuver (N=22, Group III) and night flight mission (N=17, Group IV). Baseline echocardiograms and questionnaire were recorded at some previous day before actual flight. Echocardiograms and individual questionnaire were repeated within 30 min. after actual flight. Each subject served as his own control. We compared baseline and post-flight measurements and also compared the magnitude of changes among four groups from 18 echocardiographic variables.
RESULTS
No echocardiographic variables differed significantly between baseline and post-flight measurements in any of the variables (at paired-t test) at each group. There were no significant differences among four groups for any changes in echocardiographic variables (Change=baseline data-post-flight data).
CONCLUSION
We conclude that there were no significant differences in changes in cardiac functions among groups from before to after their missions.