Spatial Disorientation

[Ewen McPhee]

I thought it would be interesting to seek people's experiences of Disorientation during flight, how they felt, how they dealt with it. I'm not even sure if people find that it happens very frequently, I would like to know what others think.

 

The Texan I fly doesn't have a full panel and I need my eyeballs out side most of the time, so you cannot rely on instruments. Obviously Rec A/C shouldn't be operating at night or other than VMC too.

 

My experiences so far have been of vertigo when I turned me head to look at a GPS in the seat next to me, while coming out of a turn. Returning my eyes to the horizon and levelling the wings settled things a bit.

 

Do people find it hard to correct for up sloping runways. 15 has an upslope and I always feel that I am coming in too high.

 

 

[Guest pelorus32]

G'day Ewen,

 

a good starting point on this subject is here:

 

http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/2007/B20070063.aspx

 

From memory it explains the mechanisms behind the various disorientations that are possible and gives you ideas therefore about how you might avoid them.

 

Regards

 

Mike

 

 

[Ultralights]

during my early hrs during a Night VFR flight, out of cessnock, returning to Syd, i suffered the false climb illusion. climbing into a dark sky, with no ground lights, i started to push the nose down at about 300 ft agl, and believing i climbing still steeper due to the increase in speed, continued to push nose down more, fortunately the instructor caught it, apparently he saw it starting from the beginning, by then i was descending at about 400ft/min at 110 kts and accelerating! :ah_oh: but let me experience it so i can recognize it in the future. i was an eye opening experience, all this time i have been thinking, how could you not believe your instruments! sadly its surprisingly easy to do. i could have bet my life on it, that i was still climbing! if i did, i would not be here now.

 

i believe learning to fly manual IFR and overcoming and recovering from disorientating situations is the HARDEST thing to learn with regards to flying!:confused:

 

 

[Mazda]

Ultralights I've had that one too, it is a horrible feeling. You really can feel like the aircraft is pitched up and about to stall. That's when you do need to monitor the instruments. It is an acceleration error which makes you feel like you are pitching up. At least if you know what it is you can ignore it.

 

 

[facthunter]

False pitch-up illusion

 

A very good point made about ONE of the difficulties that may kill you when you attempt to fly without external visual references. I hope some of the people who think you can fly I/F with a magnetised pin and a cup of water read it a couple of times. Nev..

 

 

[MrH]

When I started gliding (many, many years ago) I was doing my 5hr solo towards my certificate- it was in an IS29 with limited instrumentation, no radio - & I was flying under a street of clouds, which was great as I had ample lift to keep me up there. Trouble was the lift was quite strong in places & I accidently went into cloud & experienced my first white out.

 

I was sure that I was pointing the aircraft down to get out of the cloud but this weird sensation of all the dirt & crap flying up around my head from the floor indicated that something was very wrong - In fact I had stalled the aircraft & was merrily spinning down. Once out of the cloud it was an easy correction to bring things back to normal but It certainly made me appreciate why the instructors had said to stay clear of the cloud!!

 

I completed nearly six hours that day because I forgot to check the time before I set off. It was just a guess when I decided to land:) but now I never venture near clouds

 

H