PLT332: Physiological Factors
What code PLT332 covers, why the FAA tests it, and how to study Physiological Factors before your checkride.
Recall physiological factors - hyperventilation / stress / fatigue
What this means for your checkride
These are the personal factors that degrade performance without any mechanical failure. Hyperventilation, breathing too fast under stress, blows off carbon dioxide and causes lightheadedness and tingling that can mimic hypoxia. Stress and fatigue slow judgment and reaction time and narrow attention.
Human factors cause or worsen many accidents, so the FAA tests whether you can recognize hyperventilation, distinguish it from hypoxia, and understand how stress and fatigue erode safe decision-making.
Because hyperventilation and hypoxia feel similar, pilots treat the wrong one. At lower altitudes with oxygen available, slowing the breathing rate resolves hyperventilation; the safe habit is to assume hypoxia first, restore oxygen, then slow your breathing.
Where to study it
A code on your test report is an area of deficiency. An authorized instructor must review it with you and endorse that review before you take the practical test, and the examiner may revisit it during the oral. Study it until you can explain it out loud, not just recognize the answer.