Thank you for this. But I just want to know - is air sickness related to turbulence? I have seen turbulence - but - it is not present very often. I wonder what makes people sick, for example, if asking them about car sickness tendencies would be a clue.
Yes, car sickness tendencies is a big red flag. (Ask me how I know...)
People can technicolor yawn for a lot of reasons. In aircraft it's usually related to the things they're seeing through their eyes not matching what their inner ear (vestibular system, related to how we balance ourselves standing on two legs, etc...). Add that most folks are a little nervous (the old phrase "butterflies in the stomach" when you're close to a "fight or flight" reaction from adrenaline), and you can go from feeling great to tossing cookies, pretty quick.
Also as you start to feel bad, your mind fixates on it. A very common way to break this chain is to give the person something to do. The usual trick for that is, "Here, fly the plane." That can backfire if they're scared, but if they're just feeling badly... it takes their mind off of it and also gives them direct muscle feedback that matches what the world outside the window is doing. They turn the wheel left, the world tilts left, and vice-versa. When you're flying, they don't have that feedback loop and light turbulence mixed with little pilot oscillations trying to smooth it out, are just making them feel worse.
If they're in the back seat, it's harder. Often back-seaters get ill due to really poor rudder skills. Behind the center of gravity they're getting pushed back and forth by Mr. No Rudder Pedal "butt-feel" for side-to-side yaw, and not keeping the ball centered.
My first hurler admitted after we were on the ground at an unplanned airport that I'd tried to make before she lost it, that she can't even ride in cars without feeling bad. She'd gone along to look tough to her boyfriend who was also along. She had frozen pizza for lunch prior to the flight. It smelled like pizza.
I had my second hurler last year, and it was simply because of a mixture of some heavy antibiotics he was taking and a big BBQ lunch. He's a pilot and has never had any issues with airsickness, ever, prior to that day. We did a few T&G's with him as a passenger in the right seat and he whipped out his OWN bag from his flight bag that he keeps in there for his passengers. It smelled, not surprisingly like BBQ.
I'm like Ponce, I'll dry-heave in reaction to another person vomiting pretty easily, so I kept my eyes locked forward and concentrated really really hard on the landing and things going on OUTSIDE the aircraft, while reaching for a vent and pointing it at myself to mask the smell. I didn't heave and we laughed about it a few minutes later, taxiing in. Basically I willed myself to ignore the barfing person in the seat next to me... no peripheral vision "peeking", no watching his motions... just wait for him to go upright again and when I figured he was back on the intercom (yeah, sometimes they barf on the mic, he didn't... had enough sense to flip it up out of the way), I asked if he was okay and while he was "busy" I was working out a full-stop from the tower.
He joked that he felt MUCH better.
He also said he'd learned a lesson about why the antibiotics said not to operate machinery on the label. If he'd have been PIC or flying at all, he said he'd have been in real trouble. He had just wanted to go for a ride that day since he was self-grounded. Red flag number two... if a pilot is self-grounded enough not to fly and they want to go up... bad idea for a number of reasons. He convinced me he was good to go... and I agreed. Partially my fault.
What will really surprise you is the volume of what will fit in a human's stomach. Those little airline barf bags... not even close. Get the big plastic ones in the little paper pouches, or as someone recommended... a plastic grocery bag with no holes in it. (Those are so lightweight these days, I don't recommend them. Find a thick one.) Also, whatever you get, make sure it has an almost head-sized hole in it... missing the bag is pretty common unless you can just stuff half of your face in it, or more.
He had one of the standard plastic ones that comes in the paper pouch but expands to the size of a small bathroom trash bag once opened... not a drop in the aircraft.
Hurler #1 wasn't so lucky, but I still thank her to this day... she had a t-shirt under a sweatshirt and used the sweatshirt. I couldn't believe she got NOTHING in the aircraft that day, either. Getting her out of the aircraft back seat was... interesting. There were actually four of us on that flight, and my wife stayed with her while the boyfriend and I hopped back in the plane to go get a vehicle, drive to the unplanned airport stop, pick the girls up, and drove home. Glad it happened only about 20nm from home base... I didn't want to make her get back in the airplane, that just seemed like torture. She was REALLY happy when I came up with the plan to go take the airplane back and get the car...
It can happen to anyone, really...
so,.. there went that foam cover and after a good cleaning and a new one, that headset was back in use.
Ah well,... I ordered a new hat later that day at work.