nearly got sick while training in a jab!

[Guest dracer]

was doing my acending turns etc(im up to about 5hrs in a jab)

 

it was quite a winding day, was throwing us around a fair bit actually. i was trying to relax but felt i was fighting the plane like a bloody pitbull.

 

anyhow i was doing very well( so he says) but started to feel hot, then a little green with sweat pouring everywhere, my instructor thank god recognised i was struggling a little and took over on our return.. certainly my worst day yet.

 

what the hell happened, is my career over, even thinking of it makes me feel ****.

 

 

[Guest Roger]

hehe - mate looks like none of these guys are going to help you out here...:big_grin:

 

But don't worry even the old salts get seasick at some stage! Get up when things are relatively calm and work from there.

 

Me?? I hate navigating as a passenger - if anything starts to set me off then that is it! Looking at the map - looking down - looking at the map - ohh I can feel it now.

 

You will acclimatise however dont push yourself to the edge "cos there is just nowhere to go if you have too!"

 

 

[Ultralights]

i was trying to relax but felt i was fighting the plane like a bloody pitbull.

the trick is to RELAX! dont fight the aircraft on rough days, let the plane do what its designed to do, and fly itself, even though it might be rocking all over the place, just relax, and keep you vision fixed to the horizon.... when you start chasing the aircraft, you will always be behind it in the rough stuff, so just correct any big attitude changes, as you would on a calm day, and keep looking to the Horizon...

think of it as driving down a potholed road.... but keeping watch on the horizon will lessen the sick feeling..

 

but i wount say your flying career is over, far from it..

 

 

[Captain]

what the hell happened, is my career over, even thinking of it makes me feel ****.

There are a few flu type wogs around at the moment that will have that effect.

 

Put it down to that and go back to enjoying the flying.

 

Everyone has an off day.

 

 

[Guest TOSGcentral]

Sounds like your instructor is one of those turkeys who believes the only way to learn to swim is in 10' surf instead of a swimming pool. It just demotivates early students and is exceedingly poor practice.

 

Pick your lesson time more carefully and watch for other little tricks that lengthen your training and suck more dollars out of you.

 

 

[Guest Baphomet]

Thats probably a bit harsh Tony, we don't know if Dracer's 5 hrs, is 5hrs total or on type . If its total experience then his perception of what is 'rough' may be exagerated. As he will know, with ever increasing numbers of students, re-scheduling isn't always that easy. In any case, whatever the cause, he probably should have advised the instructor of his condition and cut short the session. I'm not an instructor, but I fully support the 'stress' methodology (tho not at 5 hrs) at some point in your flying career you're going to be alone in these situations, better to have been exposed to them in a controlled environment before hand. I think his instructor gets points for recognising the symptons and taking over.

 

 

[Guest TOSGcentral]

Not harsh Baph but certainly very cynical and I retract none of it.

 

If you are teaching or converting then you keep the student in conditions where it is initially just him/her and the aircraft and get the air out of the equation.

 

Once the control input vis a vis aircraft response confidence and understanding has risen then steadily wean the student into more exacting conditions keeping the confidence levels rising.

 

About 'recognising the airsickness' being an attribute - I just do not know. In 25,000 instructional flights I have never had anyone sick on me so cannot comment.

 

 

[Guest dracer]

thanks for the amazing advise guys.

 

i must say though it was a terrible day, i must fly in all conditions and make use of the rare occasion i can get a weekend spot.

 

be nice if i had people i could talk to in person about all aspect of flying, or buy a crystal ball

 

 

[motzartmerv]

Well, the story goes that 1 hour in rough conditions (for an early student) will put him back 3 hours. I am only a low time instructor (nothing near tony's 25000 hours) but i have seen this first hand.

 

I think the key point however was in your own words that you were fighting her like a pitbull.. Your instructor can tell you till he's blue in the face not to fight it, but all students seem to do it and the relaxed thing comes with time.. But from a strictly aerodynamic point of view, when you are applying control inputs to correct for attitude changes in all axid (pitch roll and yaw) the chances that you are keeping the acft balanced aare buckleys and sweet FA. So what you end up with is goes something like this.. The wings are disturbed by a gust, the balance ball goes off to the other side, then you counteract with unbalanced use of aileron and you experiance secondary effects, which in turn feels to you like anoyther disturbance so you try and counter it with another control input and the whole thing starts again..The jab is prone to secondary effects unless perfect balancing of rudder and aileron is under control, and in the chop, you don't have much chance to stay in front of it.. Its the out of balance feeling that makes the airsick thing worse and the chasing around of the secondary effects adds to workload and stress and it all builds up untill the innevitable occurs..

 

so the morale of the story (sorry about going on) is, try not to fight it.. trim it up and let go and see what happens.. And like tony said, pick your days..

 

cheers

 

 

[Guest ROM]

I don't wish to be presumptious considering the vast experience a lot of instructors have who are on this forum but I will draw on my own gliding instructing experience.

 

Instructors say "relax" but what does being told to 'relax" actually mean?

 

Most pupils / low hour pilots have to be actually instructed on how to "relax".

 

To do this the instructor must have thought through, experienced and actually practiced what it actually means to the pupil both physically and mentally to "relax" while in the air.

 

I also suspect that this particular bit of human engineering or psychology is not actually taught to present day instructors but the good ones have worked it out and that is one of the reasons they are good instructors.

 

Relaxing is just simply sitting there and deliberately and very consciously making your body and your muscles go loose and allowing yourself to literally just slump in the seat for a few seconds or a lot longer if you can.

 

And to be able to practice and do this every time you realise that your body and muscles have become drawn as tight as a drum head.

 

Relaxing also means a very conscious and deliberate attempt to clear your mind of everything and try and turn it into a blank slate for a few seconds and like your body, just allow it to mentally slump.

 

The relaxing of the mind often may only last for ten seconds or so but with practice a longer time of mental relaxation will help on a very stressful flight or in gliding, many hours of a high pressure, high stress environment in the cockpit.

 

It is quite striking in the way the mind, after a relaxation period, can come back into gear with a much cleaner slate to work from.

 

All this has to carefully explained by the instructor and he monitors the pupil to see the tension building up both physically and mentally and then moves in and tells the pupil to relax, allow yourself to slump in your seat and just allow yourself to ride along with the aircraft.

 

Sometimes with a very new pilot, the instructor will gently take the controls for a couple of minutes while he soothes the pupil and coaches him / her in the relaxation techniques.

 

It really does make a big difference in the attitude of the pupil when they know that you can actually make yourself just ride along with the aircraft if it all gets too hectic and the pupil finds him / herself wound right up and really tight.

 

Relaxing is a teachable technique which should reside in every instructor's tools of trade.

 

The pay off is a pupil that will have a lot more confidence and most importantly, a part of the mental capacity of the pupil which is taken up by fear and stress which is manifested in the tightness of the body muscles, becomes available for the learning process.

 

And if you want to see good examples of high stress in a pilot just try teaching a new pilot in thermalling techniques on a rough thermal day by remote control from the back seat of a glider or a more advanced pilot, spin recovery techniques while coming out the spin on a heading.

 

It keeps both instructors and pilots quite interested and involved!

 

 

[motzartmerv]

Thats some good stuff there ROM..:thumb_up:

 

:idea:cheers

 

 

[Guest TOSGcentral]

Excellent input ROM – but may I add to it a little?

 

 

A lot of in-cockpit tension is founded on confidence levels, which in turn are founded on knowledge and understanding – we tend to get up-tight about things we do not really know about, are getting out of our control and have a feeling that our personal safety is being compromised.

 

 

I believe some key words in your post were ‘just ride along in the aircraft’!

 

 

As a gliding instructor you have Stability as a foundation part of the flying training syllabus so have that base to fall back on and build confidence from. We do not have that in the RAAus syllabus which makes it even more critical that students are initially flown in appropriate conditions to their level of progression.

 

 

If they understand Stability then there is a personal knowledge base and confidence that they can fall back on – and so relax from.

 

 

Basically I am a lazy bastard and so often it has been easier for me when dealing with the normal deterioration in manipulative skills that pupils usually get when they are first coming to terms with judgemental exercises (eg circuit planning/positioning).

 

 

I assume a slightly bored expression, lean back and just say “Hey mate, how about you stop trying so hard, lean back also, let your co-pilot Stability fly the downwind leg for you – and meantime just look out the window and absorb those angles to the runway that I have been quacking aboutâ€! Works wonders!

 

 

[Chucky]

is my career over, even thinking of it makes me feel ****.

I was sick on my very first lesson and I thought the very same thing, but with the help of travel sickness medication I have made it to the end of my training and tomorrow I am going for my flight test with the CFI.

In regards to learning in rough conditions, well I had two or three lessons on what were considered "bad" days and I was given the choice to either cut the lesson short or keep going. I chose to keep going because I wanted to see if I could handle it while I had my instructor beside me just in case something went badly wrong.

 

A couple of months later I while on a solo flight I did cop a few nasty patches of air but I had the confidence to continue without the need for a change of underwear.:clown:

 

 

[crashley]

Hang in there I used to feel sick too during my early flights I took a travel calm for a few flights then half a tablet and now all I need is strong pepermints

 

dont fly on an empty stomach and try a can of coke before flying I found that helps

 

and as in previous posts try and relax as being nervous doesnt help

 

ashley

 

 

[farri]

was doing my acending turns etc(im up to about 5hrs in a jab) it was quite a winding day, was throwing us around a fair bit actually. i was trying to relax but felt i was fighting the plane like a bloody pitbull.

anyhow i was doing very well( so he says) but started to feel hot, then a little green with sweat pouring everywhere, my instructor thank god recognised i was struggling a little and took over on our return.. certainly my worst day yet.

 

what the hell happened, is my career over, even thinking of it makes me feel ****.

Hi Dracer,

 

Your career ceartinaly is over if you want it to be.

 

Psycologists say that the only two fears we are born with are the fear of loud sound and the fear of falling and that we never loose these, once this is understood it then becomes easier to deal with the fear that`s telling us that we are about to fall out of the sky when the aircraft starts to jump around a bit.

 

Fear is designed to keep us out of harm but if we loose control then we`re in trouble. As pilots we need to learn to control fear as well as the aircraft.

 

Not long after I started flying, back in the mid eighties,I became so anxious that if the leaves on the trees were moving I wouldn`t go up and a few times that I was caught in severe turbulance I was sure I was going to die but I maintained full control of my fear and the aircraft at all times by focusing on what I had to do to keep the aircraft flying saftely.

 

As for flying the aircraft,the lighter the touch on the controls the easier it is to control,hanging on to it like " a bloody pitbull" makes you tense and rigid and it becomes more difficult.

 

I am only a recreational pilot but I decided way back then that my perceived danger wasn`t going to stop me from enjoying the magic experience of flight and it need not stop you either.

 

Cheers,

 

Frank.

 

 

[motzartmerv]

What do ya mean " only a recreational pilot "??....:hittinghead:

 

 

[Guest basscheffers]

Well, the story goes that 1 hour in rough conditions (for an early student) will put him back 3 hours.

That probably depends a lot on the student as well. The second time I went out for dual circuits at 7 hours, conditions were rough - 10kt northerly wind and northerly winds at Parafield are always rough. (the first time I did circuits there was virtually no wind)

I found I managed to relax very early on and gain some very valuable experience in the process and after one or two, I barely thought about it anymore. By the end of the session, the wind started to shift very quickly and the one we declared full stop there was a cross wind that was way out of my league and needed a lot of control input from the instructor on final. (I just wouldn't drop that wing low enough and step hard enough on the opposite rudder!)

 

But again, I found that a good experience. We didn't get to do some of the things we should have done that time (emergencies) so that went to session number three. That time the wind was light, though still a little turbulent. But I did find myself flying better still compared to the previous two sessions.

 

So in my case, the rough weather certainly didn't set me back in my opinion! (and it didn't make me sick either ;) )

 

 

[farri]

Instructing.

 

An instructor rating gives that instructor the authority to teach as he or she sees fit but also having to stay within the operations manual to do so.

 

My strip is 600 mts long and runs 07-25 and due to our location,the wind changes direction and strength at least 4 times a day and it is quite turbulent due to the fact that we have the Graham range and the ocean only a couple of NM off the end of the strip.

 

I don`t believe that there is any one way to teach every single student as we are all individuals and have individual needs.

 

I used to call the first 5 hrs with a student the " Familiarisation Period", in this time I was obersving the student and working out the best way that I thought this student needed to learn,the student,average solo time in my Austflight Drifter was 15 hrs,some young top guns went in 10 hrs.,never lost a student.

 

Just to show that we all need something different.

 

I had to learn to fly Ultralight aircraft when we weren`t allowed to go higher than 500 feet AGL and there were no instructors around to teach,turbulence bothered me greatly so my way of dealing with this was to fly in those conditions as often as possible and make myself stay there untill I became confident, I still do this to keep my skill up however I must point out that to survive longterm a pilot must know when not to fly.

 

As Tony of TOSGcentral keeps saying," It`s not who`s right but who`s left". that counts.

 

Cheers,

 

Frank.

 

 

[philipnz]

Couple of times in my training i felt a bit off colour. Mainly in some of the more advanced flight manouvers when things were being demonstrated by the instructor.

 

I'm also deeply into sailing but I have got seasick sometimes.

 

You have to look beyond that, it won't stop you flying

 

 

[facthunter]

A few comments.

 

To any of you who think this is a problem, remember you will not be the only one.

 

A few points..(a) Most motion sickness pills have side effects eg. drowsiness. Read the label.

 

(b) how you hold your head in turns will affect the degree of nausea you may feel. If you look down at the wingtip in a turn, you will aggravate the effect.

 

© Apprehension tends to make the situation worse, More flying experence usually helps here. Do not wear too much clothing and loosen your collar. Have plenty of airflow around your face. If you have a choice, be a bit colder rather than hot.

 

(d) if you are not doing the flying, you are worse off, as having nothing to keep you busy you tend to be more aware of the motion of the aircraft.

 

(e) Uncoordinated flying, and overcontrolling doesn't help, and for most people negative "G" feels bad (till you get used to it, and in RAAus that is not likely). Nev...

 

 

[farri]

Sounds like your instructor is one of those turkeys who believes the only way to learn to swim is in 10' surf instead of a swimming pool. It just demotivates early students and is exceedingly poor practice.Pick your lesson time more carefully and watch for other little tricks that lengthen your training and suck more dollars out of you.

Hello Tony,

 

I took a guy for his first flight in the Drifter,once,and he was real keen,we were out in the middle of the training area when suddenly he said, "I think I`m going to be sick".

 

Keep in mind I was in the back seat,so I jokingly said, "That`s ok,just keep your mouth shut".

 

I had a sign on the class room wall that read, " It`s hard to fly like an eagle when working with turkeys"

 

Was I a TURKEY?.

 

Frank.

 

 

[farri]

© Apprehension tends to make the situation worse, More flying experence usually helps here. Do not wear too much clothing and loosen your collar. Have plenty of airflow around your face. If you have a choice, be a bit colder rather than hot.

Hi Facthunter,Good advice.

 

I was instructing in an Austflight Drifter, I know they are a minority in flying schools these days, however,I always advised students to wear plenty of warm clothing, because I found that becoming cold can have the same effect.

 

Cheers,

 

Frank.

 

 

[facthunter]

true.

 

Down in Vic in winter farri, in a drifter it would be a matter of survival. The freezing level is frequently below 4000'. I'm referring to cabin aircraft. predominantly, of course. Nev..

 

 

[farri]

Nev,

 

I can understand why Drifters would be less popular down south,but would it realy be warm in the average recreational, cabin aircraft, without cabin heat?.

 

Frank.

 

 

[Guest dracer]

i flew last saturday, i actually felt sick on the way to the airport, i managed yo make it through the flight until we were returning to do some circuits, then i felt a little hot and had that strange feeling in my head and gut.

 

i had to tell my instuctor to pull up, not touch and go. i was no where near as bad as the week before, i feel like quiting. but i wont. i felt **** for about 3hrs after the flight. if its calm im fine, should i try medication?

 

im very impressed with the ammount of replies and help iv received. your all bloody champions :thumb_up: