Spatial Disorientation and trusting your instruments

labbadabba

labbadabba

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labbadabba
I still have yet to REALLY experience this phenomenon. I've had twinges here and there, mostly on a night flight under the hood.

How compelling is the sensation? I mean, even VFR guys are taught to look at the instruments and do hood work. In concept, attitude flying is fairly common sense. So with that, are pilots who succumb to spatial disorientation just unable over overcome the physical sensation? How hard is it for your brain to ignore instinct?
 
Have a CFII take you up in actual.
 
labbadabba said:
I still have yet to REALLY experience this phenomenon. I've had twinges here and there, mostly on a night flight under the hood.

How compelling is the sensation? I mean, even VFR guys are taught to look at the instruments and do hood work. In concept, attitude flying is fairly common sense. So with that, are pilots who succumb to spatial disorientation just unable over overcome the physical sensation? How hard is it for your brain to ignore instinct?
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For me very compelling. My first experience with vertigo happened during my first actual about halfway through training. We were in a solid layer maneuvering and I kept feeling like we were in a turn even though we were level. That really brought home the lesson of keeping my scan moving. Oddly I've never felt it wearing a hood. Since then I've felt a twinge here and there usually flying in and out of broken cumulus.
 
I've only been really disoriented once, and it was well after I had become accustomed to flying on instruments.

I always expected that it would come along with a feeling of being off-balance, you know, feeling really "disoriented." It's probably unique to the individual, but for me it wasn't a feeling of being disoriented. It wasn't vague at all, I knew exactly which way was up. I only realized I had spatial disorientation after I spent 5-10 seconds of trying to figure out how all of my six pack instruments (vacuum, and not) had failed at once. Then the thought finally occurred that, as sure as I was, I must be wrong. I reminded myself to trust the instruments, re-established my scan, and got it back to level. That's what the training is for, I guess!
 
Get into some actual with a CFII...even just to experience what it is like. Would be highly valuable even as a VFR polite to experience.

Hood work is nothing like actual in my opinion. Once you loose ALL visual cues it is a whole different world.
 
A good CFII can induce disorientation in you. Ask him. Turning on the dome light during a steep turn will screw with you.

There are lots of tricks.

Start with a hood that is good enough that you don't get glimpses of the outside. Some of them don't work that well.

Though I have to admit, the worst disorientation I got was when I accidentally got a glimpse of something blue far into peripheral vision, during a missed approach. Turns out, it was a lake, but I became convinced I had my nose in the air despite flying close to level, even after looking at the AI (level), ASI (not slowing down), and altimeter (constant).

It took a few rather long seconds of "WTF" and then I shook it off.
 
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Pasted from another thread:

I got spatial d only once. It was years ago during IFR training in the Army.

I flying a TH-67 during IMC and was doing a VOR approach into EUF. I had just started my right turn and descent inbound when my IP direct my attention up and to the left. He pointed to some circuit breaker on the overhead panel and asked something like "what's this?" I don't even remember what my reply was but when I looked back at my instruments, my whole world was spinning! For a split second I panicked because I had never experienced anything so disorienting but then I fell back on my training and went with the old "delay intuitive reaction." So, I just guarded the controls, made no inputs and let the aircraft do its own thing. During spatial d, you always hear guidance to "trust your instruments." That's great and all but the real problem is that you're so disoriented, in my case coriolis illusion, that it's hard to even interpret what the instruments are telling you. I was literally telling myself that "blue means up, blue means up." Then I had to talk thru what the HSI was doing. "It's turning, that's good but to where?" It's a painfully slow process that feels like a forever but really only lasted maybe 30-45 secs. I had confidence in continuing the approach because I had an IP with me. I knew that if I couldn't regain orientation that I could transfer the controls to him. I did get my bearings straight though and knocked out a decent VOR approach. During debrief my IP said that he intentionally did that to see how it affected me. It worked!

That was the only time in 20 yrs of flying and countless unusual attitudes, aerobatics IAPs etc, that I was disoriented. Later on as an instrument examiner I had a few occasions where pilots relinquished the controls when they got spatial d. Dark nights (Afghanistan) with no visual references can mess your world up.
 
A good way is to do unusual attitudes. When my students practice unusual attitudes I let themselves get into an unusual attitude. I tell them to close their eyes and put their head down and put us in what they think is a level 30 degree turn.
 
Actual experience. I heard lots of noise and sensed zero forward motion. I was low level and caught completely by surprise and in real danger by the time I recognized WHY the little airplane on the AH was turning left rather steeply. I had stared at it wondering why it was broken because I didn't feel the turn. Fortunately I leveled it out and went on my way but I'll never forget the confusion even though we're all trained about it. By the way, the noise was because I was still at full power. I botched that, too, being completely distracted.
 
So far, I had only one little glimpse of discomfort under the hood and it went away very quickly, before I could analyze it and learn its atteibutes.
I have done numerous unusual attitudes with my CFII, including my head down, eyes closed, airplane turning different directions. Or with me steering the airplane with my head down and eyes closed. So far, no "luck". Which means, I guess, that I am lucky. But we intend to keep trying. :) As mentioned before, maybe actual will help.
 
I've experienced various levels of spatial disorientation but never lost it completely. I do fully believe in it's power to ruin one's day if one doesn't believe in the instruments.

The scariest thing I've experienced was an AI failure. Sort of like losing a vacuum pump but with full vacuum pressure and a working DG. It fell over slowly and I followed it. The scary part is that it happened in hard VMC... I was climbing out in my Maule with my head down copying a long clearance. Hand flying and copying a long unfamiliar clearance takes up a lot of bandwidth. Despite the fact that I could sense the horizon on the periphery, I followed that AI over further than I would have thought possible.
 
jordane93 said:
A good way is to do unusual attitudes. When my students practice unusual attitudes I let themselves get into an unusual attitude. I tell them to close their eyes and put their head down and put us in what they think is a level 30 degree turn.
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I like rolling very very very slowly into a steeper and steeper turn with their eyes closed. Hold it there for a while, and then snap it back to level, and have them open their eyes. They immediately turn back into the bank we were just in. That is the one advantage of hazy summer days and Lake Michigan. Point it towards Wisconsin, and it's just like IMC.

I've only had SD bad once. I was leaving Delaware, OH and was into the muck at like 400 feet. 2nd day with my Cherokee. Not enough right rudder and ended up in a lazy left turning climbout. It took me a good 2 minutes to shake the sensation after I had gotten rid of the turn.
 
EdFred said:
I like rolling very very very slowly into a steeper and steeper turn with their eyes closed. Hold it there for a while, and then snap it back to level, and have them open their eyes. They immediately turn back into the bank we were just in. That is the one advantage of hazy summer days and Lake Michigan. Point it towards Wisconsin, and it's just like IMC.
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I think I'll have to try this trick! Same goes for LI. A lot of the summer days you can't see jack with all the haze.
 
jordane93 said:
A good way is to do unusual attitudes. When my students practice unusual attitudes I let themselves get into an unusual attitude. I tell them to close their eyes and put their head down and put us in what they think is a level 30 degree turn.
Click to expand...

Actually this is a lazy way to do unusual attitudes. You aren't letting them get themselves into an unusual attitude, you are telling them to fly with their eyes closed.
 
I think if you haven't experienced it before, especially if you weren't familiar with the idea or the symptoms/fixes, it would be quite compelling. I have personally experienced it quite often.......probably almost every time I am flying close formation in the clouds. On of the more challenging ones was plugging into a KC-135 on a stormy afternoon in Afghanistan......went into the clouds, and due to having to devote 100% of my scan outside the cockpit, well to the right of the HUD or any other flight instrument, I had to ask my wingman several times whether we were in a turn or not. The scariest one was at night with very low illumination, on goggles, flying form off my then commanding officer, who was being pretty jerky with his flying (as in rough and unpredictable)....coming off target I kept feeling myself drifting away from him, so I increased the pull to close the distance. Unfortunately it was an optical illusion, as I was beneath him and had inadvertently rolled to about 135 degrees angle of bank and was actually pulling myself more and more nose down. Finally figured it out after losing maybe 5k feet of altitude.......scary stuff
 
Clark1961 said:
Actually this is a lazy way to do unusual attitudes. You aren't letting them get themselves into an unusual attitude, you are telling them to fly with their eyes closed.
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And thus, getting themselves into an unusual attitude. Don't read too much into the post.
 
jordane93 said:
And thus, getting themselves into an unusual attitude. Don't read too much into the post.
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I'm not reading too much into the post. I've gone through the training and it is a horrible way to do unusual attitudes. Stop fooling yourself that the pilot doesn't know what you are doing.

In fact, your attitude has convinced me that next time anyone tries it with me I'm going to stall it and stomp the rudder. I really dislike arrogant instructors.
 
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labbadabba said:
I still have yet to REALLY experience this phenomenon. I've had twinges here and there, mostly on a night flight under the hood.

How compelling is the sensation? I mean, even VFR guys are taught to look at the instruments and do hood work. In concept, attitude flying is fairly common sense. So with that, are pilots who succumb to spatial disorientation just unable over overcome the physical sensation? How hard is it for your brain to ignore instinct?
Click to expand...

When it hits, it can hit hard, and the complication is that you want to think you have an instrument failure, especially if you have had prior instrument failures. So the key is that you have to first ignore the muddle and confirm that your instruments are in agreement, if they are all doing the right thing in relationship to each other, then you know for sure that it's you.

I've only had it hit me a couple of times, once in training doing holds (much of my IR training was in actual), and once on a turbulent night IFR trip. It only lasted about 5-10 minutes, but I managed my way through it through sheer focus on my scan and not thinking about anything else.
 
Clark1961 said:
I'm not reading too much into the post. I've gone through the training and it is a horrible way to do unusual attitudes. Stop fooling yourself that the pilot doesn't know what you are doing.
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What's the difference? The point is to have them experience the sensations. They're practicing getting out of it, not getting into it.
 
OverTQ said:
What's the difference? The point is to have them experience the sensations. They're practicing getting out of it, not getting into it.
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Number one, it wastes time. Number two, I've been criticised for how fast I've gotten into an unusual attitude. Well, that was stupid since it was the goal. I don't tolerate stupid instructors.

OBTW, it's not the sensations it is the recovery that is important. Sheesh.
 
I'm about half way through my insturment training and got to log actual for the first time. Of the 2 hr flight we logged .9 actual, .9 simulated. I got SD about 3 different times. All 3 were when in actual. I didn't necessarily feel like I was turning (I was, but needed to hold straight and level) but it really took me time to read/interpret the instruments. One time I put my self into an up-down-up-down oscillation. About to hand the controls over to the cfii, but he talked me through it and we went over it a lot on the ground afterwards.
Great learning experience and I can't wait to log actual with the instructor again.
*side note. I had flown the day before under the hood but had not flown in the 15 days prior. Holy cow do you lose skills in that amount of time! Especially with your scan speed. Both lessons were VERY valuable.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk
 
Clark1961 said:
I'm not reading too much into the post. I've gone through the training and it is a horrible way to do unusual attitudes. Stop fooling yourself that the pilot doesn't know what you are doing.

In fact, your attitude has convinced me that next time anyone tries it with me I'm going to stall it and stomp the rudder. I really dislike arrogant instructors.
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Settle down.
 
Clark1961 said:
OBTW, it's not the sensations it is the recovery that is important. Sheesh.
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You don't think it's a good thing to have someone experience spatial disorientation for the first time in a safe environment?

Clark1961 said:
Number two, I've been criticised for how fast I've gotten into an unusual attitude.
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Seems pretty obvious that this is why you're becoming so defensive.
 
jordane93 said:
A good way is to do unusual attitudes. When my students practice unusual attitudes I let themselves get into an unusual attitude. I tell them to close their eyes and put their head down and put us in what they think is a level 30 degree turn.
Click to expand...

I do something similar, but just ask them to maintain straight and level flight with their eyes closed and head down. I'll take the throttle (to remove any audio cues from climbs/descents). Normally within 30-45 seconds, they're in an unusal attitude, have them look up. Just need to be ready for any abnormal reaction.

Note this isn't how I train unusual attitudes, just how I try to drive home that you can't always trust your senses.
 
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labbadabba said:
I still have yet to REALLY experience this phenomenon. I've had twinges here and there, mostly on a night flight under the hood.

How compelling is the sensation? So with that, are pilots who succumb to spatial disorientation just unable over overcome the physical sensation? How hard is it for your brain to ignore instinct?
Click to expand...

Go for a flight on a dark moonless night. Your body is screaming at you that something's wrong and you need to fix it Now! Very difficult to ignore millions of years of instinct and what your eyes think they see in favor of indications on a gauge.

Also, two types of spatial d: phantom sensations you can ignore, and phantom sensations mixed with vertigo. The second version is particularly hard to deal with since just looking at the panel is a chore
 
Hey folks, l am sure you can disagree with each other without getting snippy. Its a good question the OP asked so I'd suggest helping him out is more important to the thread than snipping at eachother.
 
OverTQ said:
Seems pretty obvious that this is why you're becoming so defensive.
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You are mis-interpreting and taking things out of context. I know the goal is to get into an unusual attitude so when the instructor tells me to fly the plane with my eyes closed I just put the plane into an unusual attitude. To have the instructor then criticize me for getting into the unusual attitude quickly is just stupid.

My whole point here is that telling a pilot to fly with their eyes closed in order to get into an unusual attitude isn't a particularly good exercise. It wastes time and has no teaching value. We don't fly with our eyes closed.

If we want to teach pilots to recover aircraft control then that training needs to be realistic. Flying with eyes closed is not realistic.
 
Clark1961 said:
My whole point here is that telling a pilot to fly with their eyes closed in order to get into an unusual attitude isn't a particularly good exercise. It wastes time and has no teaching value. We don't fly with our eyes closed.
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It sounds like you don't understand the training. The exercise starts when you open your eyes. Having a student close their eyes is to expedite the process of disorienting them. It's the most expeditious way to simulate a scenario in which the pilot thinks everything is fine, but looks down to see the instruments aren't indicating straight and level.

The alternative is to fly around for hours and hours on end until the student naturally puts themselves into an upset attitude. That is a waste of time.

Just because you were critiqued during your training doesn't mean the method of training isn't appropriate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalization_(psychology)
 
OverTQ said:
It sounds like you don't understand the training. The exercise starts when you open your eyes. Having a student close their eyes is to expedite the process of disorienting them. It's the most expeditious way to simulate a scenario in which the pilot thinks everything is fine, but looks down to see the instruments aren't indicating straight and level.

The alternative is to fly around for hours and hours on end until the student naturally puts themselves into an upset attitude. That is a waste of time.

Just because you were critiqued during your training doesn't mean the method of training isn't appropriate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalization_(psychology)
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I think some here are confusing two types of situations and trying to make them into one; spatial disorientation and unusual attitudes. You can be in an unusual attitude without being spatially disoriented. Conversely you can be straight and level and be spatially disoriented. So are we talking about unusual attitude recoveries or demonstrating spatial disorientation?

I've had instructors use various methods to try to get me into an unusual attitude; one is the closing your eyes while flying yourself method; then there is your flying partner trying to screw you up while you close your eyes; there is also a button on the sim which simulates wake turbulence so you are almost instantly in an unusual attitude. The point is to recover, no matter how you got into it.
 
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My instructors would have me put my head between my knees while they did positive and negative G maneuvers. Their intention was to spin my human gyros and let me overcome that disorientation. Very effective and oddly I enjoyed doing it. That does not prepare the pilot for actual disorientation that he gets into suddenly and by accident. Being caught unaware was what got me. I was behind the situation immediately and catching up was extremely difficult. All the orchestrated flight training in the world can't prepare a guy for that moment. Every pilot is trained what to do but when it's real, you're alone, and you're confused? Applying the training is what's hard.
 
Stewartb said:
My instructors would have me put my head between my knees while they did positive and negative G maneuvers. Their intention was to spin my human gyros and let me overcome that disorientation. Very effective and oddly I enjoyed doing it. That does not prepare the pilot for actual disorientation that he gets into suddenly and by accident. Being caught unaware was what got me. I was behind the situation immediately and catching up was extremely difficult. All the orchestrated flight training in the world can't prepare a guy for that moment. Every pilot is trained what to do but when it's real, you're alone, and you're confused? Applying the training is what's hard.
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Very true. In spite of all their training, military pilots , many of them, have this problem. In the navy, for instance, , off a carrier, moonless night , no reference other than instruments, some die. Others who make it back are sent to a school at pax river to take remedial training. (Interesting article on this)
 
OverTQ said:
It sounds like you don't understand the training. The exercise starts when you open your eyes. Having a student close their eyes is to expedite the process of disorienting them. It's the most expeditious way to simulate a scenario in which the pilot thinks everything is fine, but looks down to see the instruments aren't indicating straight and level.

The alternative is to fly around for hours and hours on end until the student naturally puts themselves into an upset attitude. That is a waste of time.

Just because you were critiqued during your training doesn't mean the method of training isn't appropriate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalization_(psychology)
Click to expand...

We can agree to disagree here. You repeatedly take things out of context and make inappropriate assumptions.
 
Stewartb said:
My instructors would have me put my head between my knees while they did positive and negative G maneuvers. Their intention was to spin my human gyros and let me overcome that disorientation. Very effective and oddly I enjoyed doing it. That does not prepare the pilot for actual disorientation that he gets into suddenly and by accident. Being caught unaware was what got me. I was behind the situation immediately and catching up was extremely difficult. All the orchestrated flight training in the world can't prepare a guy for that moment. Every pilot is trained what to do but when it's real, you're alone, and you're confused? Applying the training is what's hard.
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Yeah, I guess this gets to the heart of my question. We've all had to recover from an unusual attitude under the hood. So we've had a CFI do some aero-gyrations while we had our eyes closed, head down, etc. So we all know the how and the why. We all know the procedures for recovering from an UA.

But I guess my real concern isn't so much procedural, it's "what is it REALLY like to experience Spatial D.?" From the beginning of my flying time, I've wanted to get into actual conditions but my PPL CFIs refused to take me into the clouds. I want to know what it's like so that I know just how difficult it can be. Some of the stories that I'm reading give me the willies, I can't imagine being by myself and experiencing SD for the first time. I know that I know attitude flying and I know UA recovery techniques but I don't know how influential my knowledge will be over my physical instincts. I'm a bit of a chickensh!t anyway when I'm in the air...
 
Everskyward said:
I think some here are confusing two types of situations and trying to make them into one; spatial disorientation and unusual attitudes.
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This is exactly right, they're two different things. Having someone close their eyes is a way to train for either.

It's certainly a way to train for upset attitude. If someone is watching while you put them into an upset attitude, recovering ignores the effect of the "element of surprise" on the recovery. The first few times, that's fine, but ideally a trainee can execute an upset attitude recovery, with the element of surprise, by the end of training.

As far as spatial disorientation, I think it should be a goal to get someone a genuine SD experience before they take their checkride and are released into the world. Ideally, a students gets it at some point in the course of their training organically, but if not, I think an instructor should try to induce it. Some people are less susceptible to it than others, so you have to try to make it happen. Having someone close their eyes and fly is an expeditious way to do that.

Generally, to save time and to provide a more intense training experience, you can try integrate the two events into one. I've never had a student complain about that training. They're generally thankful for the experience.

Clark1961 said:
We can agree to disagree here.
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Fair enough!
 
OverTQ said:
This is exactly right, they're two different things. Having someone close their eyes is a way to train for either.
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Not really, because in many people, closing your eyes won't cause you to become spatially disoriented. Sure, you won't be able to fly the airplane accurately but it won't necessarily make you spatially disoriented.

The first, and one of the only, times I can remember being spatially disoriented was a number of years after I had become a pilot and was working in a photographic darkroom. I was looking close-up at an image projected on a wall and all of a sudden I felt the need to grab the wall because I didn't know which way was up.

Another time I witnessed a passenger (the camera operator) get spatially disoriented. We were in the clouds, he was in the right seat. All off a sudden he started to exclaim, "we're turning! we're turning!" when we were straight and level. That was a bit startling. I told him to look at the attitude indicator and the HSI. He wasn't a pilot so I don't know how much that helped...
 
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