Peter wrote:
When it came to suffering from an illness, having equipment failure or missing a seatbelt, the researchers found that pilots tended to make a “no-go” decision. When it came to missing sunglasses, missing a checklist or being stressed, on the other hand, pilots were more inclined to make a “go” decision.
Doesn’t that suggest that the stress in question is preflight (ie life stress, not flying stress).
Frans wrote:
Well, I never flew in the UK so far, but flying in mainland Europe is for me in general not stressful. As @Fuji_Abound pointed out, some flights can be challenging, but stress is the wrong word. High concentration and respect are words that fit my feelings better during challenging flights.
Be thankful for small mercies. But imagine the following – you want to fly from EDLA to EDWF (Leer Papenburg). But you don’t have Langen FIS; instead you have ATC units such as Dortmund, Paderborn, Muenster and Bremen offering differing levels of service and there’s no guarantee you will get what you want, nor are you guaranteed a transit through their airspaces. The chocolate teapot of services, the UK basic Service, is something you’ve thankfully not experienced. Imagine that plastered across the route is Class A above (eg) 3000 feet and if even so much as a wingtip cuts a corner of any of the controlled airspace en route – to which you have no real certainty whether you will be allowed to transit it – no controller will kindly speak up and ask your intentions about the Class D ahead of you. No, they will wait, file a report and then Gasco pops up, demands you pay hundreds of UK Pounds for a course telling you ‘not to infringe’, even if the controller could have helped you more. Woe betide you infringe repeatedly, irrespective of reason, even if the airspace limitations are partly to blame and ridiculously tight – your licence is at risk.
Finally, instead of linked up radar supported FIS, you have ATC providers who more or less consider you if not to be the scum of their universe, then at least an annoyance to be ignored at each and every possibility.
When I cruise around Germany, France, Austria etc, I’m so grateful for FIS – but in UK, no chance. Smaller airports supplying services to richer people (Farnborough, for example) are starting cornering controlled airspace which effectively cuts the east / west route in two; imagine flying said route and Rheine Eschendorf (EDXE) has controlled airspace which they reserve solely for corporate / private jets, spreading wide and far, banning you from entering / transiting “their” airspace.
When you see that, you realise how poorly the GA has been handled in UK and can be grateful you’re not there.
Having said that, as soon as you’re north of, say, Birmingham, it all seems to be much better – except for the lack of a linked up radar backed FIS, that is…..
IMHO it is a bit of a stretch that ATC service, or lack of, should lead to bad decisionmaking by the pilot.
One of the cornerstones of flying is that decisionmaking must always be kept in the cockpit and if ATC tries to push you into something dangerous (e.g. refusing an “avoid” request – happens a lot – and ending up in a CB) then you must ignore it. Of course some disagree.
So ATC alone should not cause a dangerous situation.
But it could happen with a pilot who is less experienced and is more easily frightened. Some ATCOs do get really aggressive.
If your route involves some CAS then you must have a Plan B which is OCAS and which can be flown without clearances. Then you should have a stress free flight. In the UK, with its crazy policy, people often turn off transponders, which is not legal if the transponder was functional.
I don’t recall reading an accident report which identified ATC aggression, or non-co-operation, as a factor in an accident. There have been some where a delay in issuing an IFR clearance may have been a factor (N2195B comes to mind, but he made much bigger mistakes) but a pilot should still not enter hazardous weather.
I have been told by ATC to join 2000ft overhead with 800ft agl weather, it caused me a lot of stress given that he was just an A/G operator 
Let’s not stretch this out of proportions, most of UK pilots perceived stress comes from too much talking to London FIS or A/G operators or AFIS or LARS “controllers”, actually 90% pilots have never actually talked to ATC let alone get them to influence their decision making
Indeed if you plan CAS & plan OCAS you get a stress free flight
OK, so what exactly are they talking about in the article? Is it stress caused by anticipated problems in flight, for instance fear of infringing some airspace?
Peter wrote:
If your route involves some CAS then you must have a Plan B which is OCAS and which can be flown without clearances. Then you should have a stress free flight.The fact that you always need a Plan B with only OCAS in the UK, sounds like the fiasco of its airspace and ATC system. Fair enough, the airspace around London is very busy (at least pre-Covid times), but that may not be valid for all controlled airspaces. In many countries, you simply don’t have another choice as to plan certain flights through CAS. How does a UK pilot plan a trip to Croatia, where the entire country is CAS above 1.000 ft AGL. Do they really think you should plan each flight below 1.000 ft AGL?
Be thankful for small mercies. But imagine the following – you want to fly from EDLA to EDWF (Leer Papenburg). But you don’t have Langen FIS; instead you have ATC units such as Dortmund, Paderborn, Muenster and Bremen offering differing levels of service and there’s no guarantee you will get what you want, nor are you guaranteed a transit through their airspaces.Fortunately, that’s just a horror fantasy.
I flew now in 14 countries across Europe and I never experienced some “UK look a like” stuff. For sure, some countries are better than others, but even after a few times Italy, it’s pretty straightforward if you know the drill. Not to mention countries like Denmark or Croatia, which is almost “ATC heaven” and even a lot better than Germany.
Interesting discussion on a research that was imho inaccurately summarized in an internet article.
The core statement of the actual research paper (with respect to stress that was only a small part of that paper) was, that GA pilots emphasize “hard” problems like inop flight instruments more in go/nogo decision making than soft factors like stress before the flight. They do this because they have the expectation that such hard factors can only get worse during flight while pre takeoff stress could (and often does) even become better.
I tend to agree to the outcome of the actual research but would not summarize it as “GA pilots downplay the impact of stress”
IIUC the stress being talked about are not stressors limited to GA pilots. I think they are looking at things such as going through a bad divorce or break up, losing ones job, moving house, a death in the family etc.
These stressors have long appeared in the human factors section of pilot exams. So I don’t reaĺly see what this research adds to what we already know.
Thanks @malibuflyer
Good summary.
The article was clickbaity, not really interesting.
Is the study available somewhere?
