"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
ups.com...
Yes, you can tell when you are turning, etc to an extent. Part of
training requires that you close your eyes, get disoriented, and then
recover the aircraft. Most of use rarely actually get disoriented in
those tests. However, that is for a short period of time. If you closed
your eyes for several minutes you would certainly lose you ability to
tell if you were turning or not.

-Robert


Years ago, 26 to be exact, when I first got my PPL I went to an FAA safety
seminar which are rarely held locally, I'm the youngest person there by at
least 15 years. They have the spinning chair (with a joy stick) where they
sit you down, blind fold you and spin you. Your job is to move the stick
like it is controlling what you are feeling.

The old guys laughed as I was the first and sure enough I steered left when
I was either not spinning at all or was spinning the other way. One of the
old guys who laughed especially hard was next in the chair and when it was
stopped he moved the stick to the right and then the FAA guy said something
to him and he turned his head and then he started pulling back on the stick
like he was climbing. Being a pilot of many 1000 hours he new this could not
be the case so he pushed the stick forward. Laughs were had by all except
for the guy in the chair.