Dealing with Airsickness, Airmet T, and IFR

Trogdor

Trogdor

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Trogdor
So my IFR training hasn't been what I thought it would be.

The good news: I'm fully versed with the IFR system and I feel I could pass the oral part of a checkride today.

The bad news: I am having a lot of trouble with chop, looking down at an approach plate, wearing a hood, and controlling the plane (yeah, I know - all part of the training process).

I know I will get better but the last two to three times I had to fly at ~3k in a moderate Airmet T and the plane was like a really, really bad boat ride. I was going from 2.8-3.2 and oscillating. After about a 20 minutes of this I started to feel naucious.

In my defense, the CFII said the chop was mod-severe and we had to call it off anyway for mechanical reasons (another long story).

But the airsickness I got from that was AWFUL. It lasted a full 24 hours before it wore off and now I'm spooked a bit. I noticed though that wearing a hood on my head seemed to really aggravate it - I'm going to try foggles to see if that's better.

Anyone else go through this during IFR training? Man, this sucked.
 
caveat: I'm not an instructor, just someone who experienced the challenges during primary training and, to a lessor degree, during instrument training.

I definitely don't like the bumps, chop, whatever. I know that people can develop some tolerance for it, some more than others, some faster than others.

There are various contributing factors, but some that you can control are (1) stress/anxiety, (2) fatigue, and others that escape me for the moment.

Anyway, the reality is that IFR lessons can be a lot of work and create stress/anxiety for the student. The good news is that as your training progresses, factors contributing to stress/anxiety should abate. You will get less mentally worked up about the lessons and that will help prevent nausea or at least mitigate it.

Wrt fatigue, the more rested your are physically, the less prone you will be to nausea.

Flying in more benign conditions will help. Flying with plenty of airflow will help. Avoid letting the cabin get to hot and stifling.

And good luck.
 
Try watching the horizon. ;)

Find a place to put the plates so you don't have to look down. That up and down head movement is not helping at all.
 
For me making sure I have eaten before flying was a key to stopping the nausea with turbulence.
 
Sean Tucker says he gets airsick the first few times he flies at the start of airshow season. He has always had a problem with airsickness, even before he started doing wild aerobatics.

You could try one of the median nerve stimulators, either the wrist strap and plastic ball or the stimulating watch. Those are sometimes given to pregnant women to help with morning sickness.
 
Training isn’t just for your conscious brain. Keep at it and your nausea should lessen and dissipate. (If it doesn’t, I’ll refund the money you paid for my advice; I guarantee it).
 
455 Bravo Uniform said:
Training isn’t just for your conscious brain. Keep at it and your nausea should lessen and dissipate. (If it doesn’t, I’ll refund the money you paid for my advice; I guarantee it).
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I will take you up on the most generous offer!
 
You're not alone. View-limiting device and turbulence can be a tough combo. In real IMC weather, the air is often rough, so, sure, at some point you need to get used to flying on instruments in bumpy air. But, it's definitely somewhat easier when without a hood, or such. That said, I always tell instrument students to just speak up if they start feeling woozy, and we'll just knock off, go home visual, and try another day. If the student is holding back nausea, they're probably no longer learning anything anyway, and, I really don't want to have to clean up puke. At the civilian-level of training, there's just no point in making it miserable, after all, it's not Marine boot-camp (an entirely different set of criteria).
 
@Jim Carpenter Yeah, that's what happened. It really sucked too - I didn't even get to land to get some cross time in.
 
Jim Carpenter said:
That said, I always tell instrument students to just speak up if they start feeling woozy, and we'll just knock off, go home visual, and try another day. If the student is holding back nausea, they're probably no longer learning anything anyway, and, I really don't want to have to clean up puke. At the civilian-level of training, there's just no point in making it miserable, after all, it's not Marine boot-camp (an entirely different set of criteria).
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Exactly. I can only take so much UA work under the hood. I also am an early morning fly guy before the convective stuff starts. FWIW, excecpt for the bumps of the in and out IFR, the actual IFR I've flown is much smoother than that but maybe I'm just uber conservative.
 
I HATED the hood time I did during PPL, to the extent that I wasn't sure I'd ever do instrument. The hood is super uncomfortable and awkward, and foggles really made me nauseous. The light coming through the fogged part caused my eyes to focus on the glasses and made me sick. I had much better luck with "blockalls", which are black instead of fogged. They are overpriced and you could make your own with safety glasses and electrical tape if you wanted.

Mounting the tablet i use for plates on the yoke helps a lot, too. Anything you can do to minimize head movement. Putting it on the yoke puts it right in line with the instruments. The biggest problem i had then was looking over at the GPS.

As far as riding the bumps, nothing for it. You get used to it, sort of. I no longer feel sick from turbulence, but it still makes me nervous. Nice thing about having the instrument rating is you can climb above the clouds into smooth air.
 
Fly IFR practice in milder conditions, I'm betting you'll get past the airsickness quickly.
 
Hang in there and don’t give up. Flying under the hood and trying to learn during turbulence for a long time invites airsickness. Next lesson fly in smoother air for less time and get that confidence back. Don’t give up!
 
Oh hey good tip I got from someone else... IFR practice at night. Very smooth conditions prevail.
 
I think for my next lesson I’m not going to be cruising at 3k if there is an Airmet T here in NJ. It just sucks.
 
Trogdor said:
Not every CFI/II will do this.
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Find one that will. There's no reason not to. And it prevents you from 'cheating'.

I love taking students out on a hazy day, fly them out over Lake Michigan and watch the spatial disorientation ensue. Shows how much they sneak a peak out the corner of their foggles/hood. Do it at night with a high overcast and you get the same effect.
 
The hood makes everything worse. Minimizing head movements, especially vertical movements is important. Holding stuff up to eye level rather than looking down in your lap at plates can help. (Even a yoke mount for plates or EFB can help minimize vertical head movements.) Actual IMC is easier. And the training environment, with rapid-fire multiple approaches and holds, etc. is a much higher stress load than flying an IFR trip in IMC, and that will contribute to anxiety and potential nausea. On real IMC trips, one almost always seeks as decent a ride as possible while IFR. I tend to minimize time spent flying in bumpy cloud tops or down low in orographic turbulence. It's tough to tolerate it for long.

So no, you are not alone. I did not enjoy the ride on some of my local training flights in the bumps. My instructor and I tried to fly more XC flights with approaches at several airports spaced apart, in real IMC if at all possible, and that was both more practical and more enjoyable. And more realistic of how to use an IFR rating, including in-flight weather evaluation and decision making. (Back then there was no FIS-B weather in the cockpit. What a difference that makes!) Flying without the hood in real IMC was both a revelation and so much more comfortable, even in the bumps.
 
@chemgeek Thanks for that. This is what I suspected - actual IMC trips are probably a lot less bumpy than trying to maintain low altitudes in ortho turbo.

I was rocking and shaking for a good 20-30 minutes before I started to get nauseous. But it was awful (even my landing sucked since it was hard to get my sight picture right).

I bought FAA certified foggles to see if that might be better since again - the pressure of the hood on my forehead was really too much (no it wasn't on that tight. it's just the sensation of weight).
 
Trogdor said:
@chemgeek Even my landing sucked since it was hard to get my sight picture right.
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My regular piloting stuff went to crap while I did instrument. Training 2-3 times a week got it done but it was good to go back out and enjoy a local flight with half dozen landings.
 
Airsickness is one of those things that usually passes pretty quickly. A little food, some water, and pushing through is key. It'll pass!
 
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