On Sun, 10 Sep 2006 19:52:40 +0200, Mxsmanic
wrote:

Roger (K8RI) writes:

I fly high performance. I've let a lot of other pilots fly the Deb.
It's a rare pilot who has been flying fixed gear planes that wont soon
have the Deb doing 2Gs out of the bottom and zero over the top in a
PIO. They are used to looking at the VSI. That doesn't work in
slippery airplanes. More than one has had me saying to my self: I will
not get sick in my own airplane... I..will.. not...get ... sick...
in... my ... own airrrr...plane....

What _do_ you do if you get sick, especially if you are flying on your
own?

You get sick and fly the airplane. My second time in actual which was
bringing the Deb home from Muncie IN. We were in building storms that
hadn't quite turned into thunderstorms...yet. a number of planes were
reporting severe turbulence (bad enough ATC had the altitude alarms
turned off) and torrential rain. At 9000 we were just catching the
bottoms of the clear air spaces between the cumulus for a few seconds
at a time. For an hour and 8 minutes we were anything except straight
and level. Now why would I remember something like that down to the
minute? :-)) I had vertigo so bad I had to use my finger to point to
each instrument, but it was so rough I kept missing. Then I'd set
there trying to remember which instrument I'd been after. GAWD but I
was sick. My instructor just sat over on the right side with an
occasional finger thump on the yoke to remind me to go up, down,
right, or left. His comment after the flight was the same as your
question.

After about 15 minutes the nausea went away to be replaced by the most
GAWD AFFUL head ache I can remember. An hour and 8 minutes after
entering the crap we popped out the side of a bigggg cumulus with
nothing but clear sky ahead. I turned around and looked up, and up,
and up, then scrunched down in the seat so I could look up even
farther. My remark: "We just came out of that!" Instructor's bored
sounding remark: "Sorta looks that way."

Are there instruments that indicate the direction and magnitude of net
accelerations in the aircraft, so that you can visually see if you are
holding 1 G or more in a loop?

Most aerobatic aircraft have a G meter which indicates negative and
positive G but only in the vertical axis of the airplane. Typically
you use the G meter for some maneuver entry forces and to keep from
breaking in the airplane.


Anyway, these accelerations are another reason why I'm not too keen on
flying for real. Some are pleasant enough, such as standard movements
on take-off, but bouncing around in turbulence or certain unexpected
movements of the aircraft are quite unpleasant. I've only been queasy
once on a commercial aircraft, but that was mainly because I was very
tired but could not sleep (as a passenger, obviously). The statistics
I've seen show that less than 0.1% of passengers experience motion
sickness; I don't know what the figure is for pilots.

I think they were all on the one flight I took. :-)) It was the 6:30
AM flight out of Denver for Cleveland (737). We hit the jet stream
interface right after breakfast. There were only a couple of empty
seats. Seams like it was only one and all but about 10 of us got sick.


Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't be useful to have a drug that
eliminates all sense of motion for instrument flying. That way you
could watch your instruments without being influenced by what your
semicircular canals are saying.

As a pilot you aren't even allowed to take Dramamine. Which after
flying home from Marysville KS my wife marked "That Dramamine is
wonderful stuff!". We took off into winds of 30 G 50 and had over a
100 knot tail wind at 500 feet.RNAV said we were moving 250 but that
was from a VOR about 30 degrees to our left.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com