Aerobatics sickness rates

[kevinh]

Hi ya'll,

So I've given a lot of rides (at least one a week?) and most of them include some amount of aerobatics. In this process I've learned a few things and of course I still have some questions.

Things I've learned (I'd be curious what others have found):

• 60% of passengers feel a 'little funny' after just a few aileron rolls.
• Make sure the air vent is blasting on their face - it makes a huge difference.
• As soon as the passenger "feels funny" give them the controls for some mellow straight and level flying - and possibly start heading home.
• A quiet passenger is a potential sick passenger. Even if they say they are fine. This is especially true for males.
• Only 20% of passengers don't "feel funny" after a few loops (in other words 80% feel slightly queasy after rolls + loops).
• Very few passengers enjoy practicing spins.
• Those little wrist pressure things seem to actually work.
• Non aerobatic pilots are much more likely than regular passengers to get queasy. (I suspect because their eyes/ears are telling them to 'fix' things when it is looking strange outside. Where regular passengers just think of it as a roller-coaster.)
• People with a poor sense of balance don't get airsick. This is totally a theory, but I've been asking the following before flying with any passenger: "Would you say you have a good sense of balance?" The folks who say yes seem to be much more likely to get sick than those that say no. I'm guessing that mucous inside the ear of 'poor balance' people keeps the inner ear more heavily damped.
• I tell passengers to eat only a small amount before the flight. I've heard that a little bit is better than empty, but not sure about this.

Fortunately I've only had two people barf and both nicely in the bag.

I've had a couple of passengers get really sick (on the ground) after repeatedly saying "I feel fine" to my questions in the air. When I asked about this they said "I thought you would make us stop if I said I was feeling sick and other than feeling like I was going to barf, I was having a great time." I wasn't quite sure what to say to that.

What have you learned about how to keep a passenger comfortable?

[scard]

Excellent commentary! I have nothing to add except that I do have pretty good balance, am a reasonably accomplished pilot, and DO have a very high propensity for air/motion sickness only when I'm not in control. Tanya is the opposite. I have said "I have the airplane" out of the blue, many times, to stabilize my gyros while she was having fun. This has been a daily topic of conversation recently for us as we are setting up to go do some real competition aerobatics training/instruction soon. Even talking about buying a "temporary" plane to do it right for practice. Way outside my comfort zone, by design. I'm planning on taking a garbage bag on my first few flights .

[Toobuilder]

You don't have an option for making YOURSELF sick... After I've been away from it for a bit, I can turn myself inside out pretty easily. I think you are right about the pilot passengers being the most prone... I have really worked some non-pilot types over and they were begging for more long after I had enough.

[Paul K]

I'm with you Scott!

-I know that the more I fly on a daily basis, the less prone I am to getting sick. -If I am the one doing the flying, the less likely I am to get sick.
-If I drink any kind of pop, I am very likely to barf with even light movement.
-Finally, I have a very low tolerance to anything over 2 g's. I get a very bad pounding head that makes me sick. So, I can't win.

Someday I hope to be able to overcome enough of this to be able to do some rolls and loops.

[skybolt31]

Great post, some good information there. I have probably given a thousand aerobatic demo rides over the years and have had one sick passenger, and he was an experienced pilot.

In addition to the above comments, I would add a few

1. Keeping orientation is key, I tell them to follow the nose around a point on the horizon for rolling maneuvers, follow the wingtip around a point for looping maneuvers and tell them when to switch for the combinations. I try to find something substantial on the horizon and remind them to keep their eyes on it as we are doing the maneuver.

2. Passengers that start dropping their head down, like the quiet ones are getting sick. One nice thing about flying from the back seat is that I can keep an eye on them without them realizing it. Keep pointing out things on the horizon for them to look at.

3. Before the flight, I tell them if they are uncomfortable in anyway, just tell me that they just remembered they have to make a phone call. It is a silly game, but when they don't feel good, their judgment is off a little and anything that makes it easier to call it off without compromising their pride helps.

As was said previously, the more stick time the passenger gets, the better they will feel.

[Flyguytki]

Some things I learned when I flew Competition Aerobatics:

- Contrary to belief, Flying Acro on an empty stomach will only make it worse.
- Having peanuts or something to snack on during pre flight does wonders
- If you fly Acro daily some can become immune to motion sickness, as soon as you take a day off, it hits you hard.
-Don't push yourself, stick to 30 to 40 minute flights, this leads to about 15 to 20 minutes of solid maneuvers, depending on where your box is at.
-If you can find a place to store it, bring water along, it help.

granted this is only for me, everyone is different but this is what helped me out significantly.

-david

[DakotaHawk]

I've given close to a hundred intro flights that include basic aerobatics (loops, rolls, cuban eights, etc) without even a single queasy passenger!

I always begin with some gentle turns, gradually tightening the turns to 2 g's. We discuss g's and the effect on body weight. While in a 2 g turn, I show them the g-meter on the Dynon, and then tell them that 2 g's is equal to twice their body weight.

After a couple of 2 g turns, I let them have the stick for a couple of minutes, so they can feel how responsive the plane is. I tell them to "just think about turning..." and sure enough, the plane turns! They're always amazed at how light on the controls it is.

Once they've experienced a couple of g's, and then gotten some stick time, I set them up for a single aileron roll. I explain every part of the manuever, and then let them know that the roll is a positive g manuever - they won't fall out of their seat while upside down. I stress that they keep their eyes open and look outside. Usually, just before I start the roll I'll point out a landmark in front of us and tell them to watch - a powerline or a mountain.

Loops are next - My loops are 2.9 g manuevers and that's what I tell my passenger. I explain how I pull into the loop. Hard pull to start, then light over the top, and then hard on the downline to level off. As we go over the top, I get them to look up at the ground, so they have a sense of where they are.

I usually limit first time aerobatics to two rolls and two loops. I may throw in a "power off" stall or a canyon turn if someone seems to be enjoying the ride and doing well.

This is just my technique. It has worked great for me. I'm not out to get anyone sick. But even the biggest chicken (my LtCol Bro-in-Law) eventually decided to try an aileron roll and decided that it was cool to go upside down!

[kevinh]

Originally Posted by skybolt31

1. Keeping orientation is key, I tell them to follow the nose around a point on the horizon for rolling maneuvers, follow the wingtip around a point for looping maneuvers and tell them when to switch for the combinations. I try to find something substantial on the horizon and remind them to keep their eyes on it as we are doing the maneuver.

Great idea!

[N355DW]

I have been an aerobatic instructor, off and on, for about 18 years now. My first training plane was a Pitts S2B, and more recently, an Extra 300L. I also flew with many students in their planes.

Anyway, I have given hundreds of hours of instruction and rides. I would have to say that probably well less than ten percent have actually gotten sick in the plane.

The advice and stories here are dead on in agreement with my experience.

For non-pilot rides and student new to acro, these were some of my guidelines:

1. I also do a few 2 g turns to get the passenger slightly acclimated.

2. I never make any abrupt movements of the controls, and I always explain exactly what we are going to do before we do it.

3. I try to keep a conversation going with the passenger, if they start to get quiet I head back to the airport immediately.

4. I also do 1g aileron rolls as the first acro maneuver.. Just pull up the nose about 30 degrees and roll gently. Often the passenger will spend most of the flight wanting to do those!

5. Loops are next, and depending on how that goes, I will do hammers and modified cubans and reverse cubans (modified in that I start roll before we hang from the belts). The Extra was great in that it was powerful enough I could do a little over 2g loops easily.

6. Keep the air flowing on them!

7. I use 1 gallon ziploc bags as the backup.

I made the mistake the first time I gave a ride of doing a spin, and it was the first maneuver! We went straight back to the airport after that. No spins, unless it is instruction. Even then I will wait until the student is more acclimated before starting spins.

This is in direct opposition to the way that my first acro instructor, the great Duane Cole, taught me! He had me do spins as the first maneuver, and, having never done anything more scary than a power on stall before, I nearly lost it as was scared silly to boot! I think it slowed down my learning process as it took me almost two hours before I was remotely aware of my bearings!

I put spins in later, I think that works much better after the student is more used to the sights of unusual attitudes.

I have had students (pilots) who desperately wanted to learn aerobatics, and tried every remedy, but always got sick on every flight, no matter how gentle.

I have taken up little old ladies who looped and rolled for a good twenty minutes and loved every second. You just never know how someone will do, but you keep very aware of their state at all times.

I have never gotten sick, but if I did too many rolling turns during practice I could have gotten myself there. The years I flew Advanced and Unlimited I was very careful easing into negative g's, I had several friends who got g-induced vestibular dysfunction ("the wobblies") even when not flying, and if they were professional pilots this could endanger their jobs.

I get sick as a dog on a boat on the ocean. I hate ocean going boats!

Damon

[jrs14855]

Two years of full time acro instruction and many more years part time, never had anyone get sick in the airplane, only two that I remember after they got out of the airplane. My standard was aileron rolls first, let the student set their own pace, and let the student do almost all the flying. 90% of the time I did not demo the aileron roll, just talked the student thru their first aileron roll.
When I was learning on my own I would fly until I felt a little bit sick, then one more maneuver, then one more maneuver etc.
When I started instructing acro full time I went from a chesse and cracker only diet to a huge plate of Italian food for lunch in about two weeks.
98% of the time the student will want to stop after 30-40 minutes, sometimes less. The other 2% look out.