A Comparison of Three Cardiac Ambulatory Recorders Using Flight Data

Several ambulatory recording devices are available to record pilots' electrocardiograms (ECG) during flight. The procedures these devices use to record these data vary a great deal. Some record the data in analog form, others in digital form, and others save only the interbeat intervals. With the variety of available devices the comparability of their resulting data needs to be verified for researchers to be confident of their results when sharing data among laboratories. Three ECG recording devices were compared using data collected from pilots during an approximately 60-min flight. The data were simultaneously recorded from the pilots by all 3 recorders. The results show that the devices provide essentially identical heart rate data.