Sport Pilot Talk

So - finally got into the air for training! I got 2.5 hours hobbs time in the log book yesterday after a lot of weather cancelations !

Great visibility - but weather a bit rough. Then when doing a sharp 360 turn at a high bank - well I got a bit motion nausea. Didn’t need the bag - but didn’t feel great.

Think I made a mistake. In the turn I looked straight ahead at the nose I think I should have looked into the turn instead. Should I have had my head cocked to be level with the horizon? Or keep it level with the plane ?

Any tips on dealing with motion sickness appreciated!

WDD wrote:So - finally got into the air for training! I got 2.5 hours hobbs time in the log book yesterday after a lot of weather cancelations !

Great visibility - but weather a bit rough. Then when doing a sharp 360 turn at a high bank - well I got a bit motion nausea. Didn’t need the bag - but didn’t feel great.

Think I made a mistake. In the turn I looked straight ahead at the nose I think I should have looked into the turn instead. Should I have had my head cocked to be level with the horizon? Or keep it level with the plane ?

Any tips on dealing with motion sickness appreciated!

No need to cock your head. You are striving to do coordinated turns and in a coordinated turn there are no yaw forces to fight, just sit in your seat.

Personally I want to look strait down the wing as well as at the nose as it describes an arc along the horizon as well as eslsewhere.

Feeling thick is prolly cause your doing steep turns on your first flight not where your looking. Pretty normal

No advice from me but, at least in my case, it seems to be very random. Normally I am fine 90% of time and then for some reason I will get a bit nauseous. Last time it was just flying along Lake Michigan - just looked to the side over the lake and it got me. Turned back over the land and soon I was fine ... go figure.

I tend to be nausea-prone when doing aerobatics. Sucking on a peppermint (the kind you pick up out of the bowl on your way out of a restaurant) seems to help a lot.

My profile picture shows me pulling gees in a Globe Swift. Notice the grimace. I'm sucking a peppermint in that photo.

Try focusing on the horizon, not a fixed point on the plane. It helps prevent seasickness in rolling seas. With repeated exposure, you will learn to handle it. And be sure to discuss this with your instructor. He/she has probably experienced the same thing and can offer some advice. Now I have the urge to go sailing. Too bad I don't have a boat bigger than a kayak!

2.5 hours on your first day flying is a little bit of an overload, and could have had something to do with it. It helps to develope a tolerance over time. Some people will never get over it, but most do to some degree. We have a fellow on the field here that has problems riding with someone doing steep turns, but can do acro if he is flying. I know of another fellow who could only fly for 15 to 20 minutes at a time when he started training without getting sick. He later went on to flying airshows and giving aerobatic instruction.

Don't really think it is going to be a problem as you become acclimatized to strange forces of flying.

The biggest obstacle at this point is not to let the fear of it loom over you for your next lesson or two. Arm yourself with Paul's peppermint and the knowledge that this many pilots know it will pass and go about it armed with that

Keep your lessons down to an hour of flight until you settle in.

A good dose of steep turns and a hot day will do it for me. Best thing to do is talk to your instructor, spread the maneuvers that give you trouble out, and ease into it.

Motion sickness getting a lot better to point where it is almost gone altogether. Some thoughts:

1- I use a Reliefband wrist electrical stimulator device that seems to help.
2 - I’m probably just getting used to the movements of an airplane
3- The biggest help I believe is noise reduction. I experimented with30 dB ear plugs under the DC headset and turned the headset volume to max. Odd how that made a huge difference for me. Last thing I want to do is buy another headset right now, but those clarity aloft in ear sets have a 29 dB reduction rating vs the DavidClark’s 23. Supossedly even have higher noise reduction than an ANR? Tempting.