I don't have bad motion sickness in that I get sick driving or when other people drive or even when I fly, but fast twirling roller coasters at a theme park usually make me sick after about 3 rides. Is there any way of overcoming this and how could this affect a career as a military pilot?
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Motion Sickness
- Thread starter g20t5
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Given enough inputs, anyone can get motion sickness. Your body should adjust after awhile. There's programs out there for people that have serious motion sickness problems. I honestly wouldn't worry about it, but then again, I'm a pilot, not a doctor, Jim.
I've had light cases of motion sickness in the plane. There's nothing like having a ****ty pilot in the seat at 200 feet when it's 100 degrees outside sitting in the galley of a P-3.
I've had light cases of motion sickness in the plane. There's nothing like having a ****ty pilot in the seat at 200 feet when it's 100 degrees outside sitting in the galley of a P-3.
well, having suffered through many of my early FAMS as i did due to the wonderful effects of air sickness, i can give you some good gouge.
I don't get sick on rollercoasters, in cars, or on passenger planes. I get sick on the open ocean and used to when i flew. You may not get sick on a regular plane, but the T-34 is a unique beast. However, even if you do, they will work with you.
After the first three or so flights, if you're still getting sick they will give you some meds that work, at least in my case, really well. You must be off the meds by your first checkride though, as you must be able to fly your solo without the aid of meds. I managed to get through my checkride without meds (but we had to fly straight and level for a bit after we did spins) and i was careful on my solo - flying and puking up my toenails at the same time seemed like poor headwork. If your sickness is really bad and you either don't respond to the meds or you can't be weaned off of them, you'll be sent to the "Spin and Puke".
Spin and puke (i didn't have to do it, but i was damn close) is just like it sounds. YOu sit in a chair with your head on a tray in front of you (like a tray table on a plane, built into the chair) and your spun. You aren't spun very fast, but then they ask you to sit up quickly, inducing HUGE vertigo. Just seeing the chair made me ill. Anyhow, they'll hit you with the chair for a few sessions each day for a few days or weeks until either your body gets used to it, you need further "treatment" or you DOR.
If you are sent to further "treatment" you go to Pensacola to get sent to the bigger spin and puke. I didn't see this happy fun place, but i understand it was the regular chair on steroids. ALso, this goes on for MONTHS. I met an ensign (NFO i think) who was going to this treatment, he said it was all he could do to go in ever day..for HOURS of pure hell. Apparently it did work for him.
I understand that the Air Force is a bit more aggressive (draconian) in their treatment in that if you puke on your first ride or two, you get the treatment (the nasty one too). I can't confirm much about that though.
You CAN make it through. I know of several people who gave up. It does suck, hard. It makes flying so much harder and studying near impossible. You'll go home and you'll just want curl up and die, but you know you can't. I'd say most people make it, really they'll give you many chances to get help for it, they will work with you as long as you keep showing up with PMA (positive mental attitude).
I wouldn't worry about it if i were you. If you get it, you'll most likely get over it in a flight or two, if not, suck it up. Becoming a naval aviator is worth it, best damn day of my life.
I don't get sick on rollercoasters, in cars, or on passenger planes. I get sick on the open ocean and used to when i flew. You may not get sick on a regular plane, but the T-34 is a unique beast. However, even if you do, they will work with you.
After the first three or so flights, if you're still getting sick they will give you some meds that work, at least in my case, really well. You must be off the meds by your first checkride though, as you must be able to fly your solo without the aid of meds. I managed to get through my checkride without meds (but we had to fly straight and level for a bit after we did spins) and i was careful on my solo - flying and puking up my toenails at the same time seemed like poor headwork. If your sickness is really bad and you either don't respond to the meds or you can't be weaned off of them, you'll be sent to the "Spin and Puke".
Spin and puke (i didn't have to do it, but i was damn close) is just like it sounds. YOu sit in a chair with your head on a tray in front of you (like a tray table on a plane, built into the chair) and your spun. You aren't spun very fast, but then they ask you to sit up quickly, inducing HUGE vertigo. Just seeing the chair made me ill. Anyhow, they'll hit you with the chair for a few sessions each day for a few days or weeks until either your body gets used to it, you need further "treatment" or you DOR.
If you are sent to further "treatment" you go to Pensacola to get sent to the bigger spin and puke. I didn't see this happy fun place, but i understand it was the regular chair on steroids. ALso, this goes on for MONTHS. I met an ensign (NFO i think) who was going to this treatment, he said it was all he could do to go in ever day..for HOURS of pure hell. Apparently it did work for him.
I understand that the Air Force is a bit more aggressive (draconian) in their treatment in that if you puke on your first ride or two, you get the treatment (the nasty one too). I can't confirm much about that though.
You CAN make it through. I know of several people who gave up. It does suck, hard. It makes flying so much harder and studying near impossible. You'll go home and you'll just want curl up and die, but you know you can't. I'd say most people make it, really they'll give you many chances to get help for it, they will work with you as long as you keep showing up with PMA (positive mental attitude).
I wouldn't worry about it if i were you. If you get it, you'll most likely get over it in a flight or two, if not, suck it up. Becoming a naval aviator is worth it, best damn day of my life.
"I got sick at first and found that flat gingerale and animal crackers (dont laugh) helped and were much better than not eating eventually you get over it."
I can vouch for the animal crackers, they're life savers.
do NOT eat any of the VT-2's retired senior chief's polish dogs (thursdays at lunch) before you fly - bad juju.
also, do NOT drink warm gatorade (though it does help anything else coming back up taste a bit better).
drink lots of water. using the piss tube is not a bad thing.
I can vouch for the animal crackers, they're life savers.
do NOT eat any of the VT-2's retired senior chief's polish dogs (thursdays at lunch) before you fly - bad juju.
also, do NOT drink warm gatorade (though it does help anything else coming back up taste a bit better).
drink lots of water. using the piss tube is not a bad thing.
gnorman911
Registered User
Good luck with that...
I don't know if this will help or not but I'll put it out there anyways. I have yet to actually fly in the spin and puke but my master's thesis was on a centrifuge-based tactical flight simulator being built by ETC corporation near Philadelpihia. You can check out the simulator at www.etctacticalflight.com.
Anyways, for the thesis I had to take a ride in the simulator, and I experienced a lot of disorientation and motion sickness. After the ride was over I had to make a quick trip to the head to puke. My thesis at that point became a lot about what exactly caused me to feel this way.
You have various systems in your body which work to communicate sensations of motion to your brain. The two that probably communicate the most are your visual system (your eyes, duh) and your vestibular system (your middle ear). Now when these systems send different information to your brain about how your body is moving, you can experience spatial disorientation and motion sickness. This happened in the simulator because your inner ear felt and communicated to your brain how your body was actually being moved but your eyes, which could not see outside of the gondola that you were riding in, were telling your brain something completely different.
I believe that when you are sitting in the spin and puke, you can see outside of the cab that you are sitting in. The staff there gets around that I guess by making you place your head down on a table so you can't see out. There's probably another reason for this also which I will discuss in a second. Anyways, they can move you as fast or slow as they want and place you in any orientation that they want and your eyes won't be able to tell you the difference, although your inner ear may be able to give you some indication as to which way they are moving you. Eventually that information will be wrong, which explains why a pilot can become disoriented in the cockpit in low visibility conditions.
Now, after being accelerated in a certain direction, your inner ear will detect it, however, after a few seconds it will not sense the acceleration anymore until a new acceleration is placed upon you. This would explain why they have you raise your head up from that table it was on. You will experience discordant information about your motion from your motion detecting systems. Therefore, you will feel crappy.
There are a number of factors that will determine how you cope with these sensations. Physical conditioning, age, and probably most important, past experience, are some of these factors. So what I'm trying to say is it should get better the more you do it. I'm trying to stay really basic with this stuff. I got a lot more in depth in the actual thesis. I'm also hoping that I might be able to trick my mind into knowing how I am actually moving and not paying attention to my middle ear. I don't think this will work.
This is to help you hopefully understand more about what is actually making you sick. Definately follow the advice about the animal crackers and other stuff which should help you with the symptoms of motion sickness. Didn't mean to nerd out on everyone but I hope this helps some.
Anyways, for the thesis I had to take a ride in the simulator, and I experienced a lot of disorientation and motion sickness. After the ride was over I had to make a quick trip to the head to puke. My thesis at that point became a lot about what exactly caused me to feel this way.
You have various systems in your body which work to communicate sensations of motion to your brain. The two that probably communicate the most are your visual system (your eyes, duh) and your vestibular system (your middle ear). Now when these systems send different information to your brain about how your body is moving, you can experience spatial disorientation and motion sickness. This happened in the simulator because your inner ear felt and communicated to your brain how your body was actually being moved but your eyes, which could not see outside of the gondola that you were riding in, were telling your brain something completely different.
I believe that when you are sitting in the spin and puke, you can see outside of the cab that you are sitting in. The staff there gets around that I guess by making you place your head down on a table so you can't see out. There's probably another reason for this also which I will discuss in a second. Anyways, they can move you as fast or slow as they want and place you in any orientation that they want and your eyes won't be able to tell you the difference, although your inner ear may be able to give you some indication as to which way they are moving you. Eventually that information will be wrong, which explains why a pilot can become disoriented in the cockpit in low visibility conditions.
Now, after being accelerated in a certain direction, your inner ear will detect it, however, after a few seconds it will not sense the acceleration anymore until a new acceleration is placed upon you. This would explain why they have you raise your head up from that table it was on. You will experience discordant information about your motion from your motion detecting systems. Therefore, you will feel crappy.
There are a number of factors that will determine how you cope with these sensations. Physical conditioning, age, and probably most important, past experience, are some of these factors. So what I'm trying to say is it should get better the more you do it. I'm trying to stay really basic with this stuff. I got a lot more in depth in the actual thesis. I'm also hoping that I might be able to trick my mind into knowing how I am actually moving and not paying attention to my middle ear. I don't think this will work.
This is to help you hopefully understand more about what is actually making you sick. Definately follow the advice about the animal crackers and other stuff which should help you with the symptoms of motion sickness. Didn't mean to nerd out on everyone but I hope this helps some.
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