UK video: PA28 diverts due sick pax

Just shows how interesting - and instructive, for us lot - a minor aeronautical drama can be

 

when covered by five well placed action cams (plus iPad feed), edited well and left to play out in (almost) real time.

 

 

 

 

BTW The Flying Reporter has heaps of great videos on his YouTube channel.

 

 

If you are prone to airsickness, you'll know that for that kid, the 10 minutes from decision to divert to wheels on ground would have seemed like ten hours. Ruins a father/son outing.

 

 

My 10yo feels sick in an elevator but insists he wants to be the first up with me when I'm qualified. Can't end well I feel...

 

 

My 10yo feels sick in an elevator but insists he wants to be the first up with me when I'm qualified. Can't end well I feel...

It's one of the unexpected things you get after your training, particularly on cross country flights. I've had three people throwing up around me; the stink was so bad I was dry retching, and flew for about 20 minutes with that little perspex flap you can see at 14:03 with my nose stuck in the airstream. Doesn't do much for your focus. What was worse was that while I was filling up with fuel they went into the club house and filled up with pies, so it started all over again as soon as we took off.

 

 

There's a phobia for that - Aeronausiphobia - vomiting due to airsickness fear, vomiting due to airsickness phobia, fear of vomiting due to airsickness, phobia of vomiting due to airsickness, fear of vomiting, phobia of vomiting, vomiting phobia, vomiting fear, airsickness fear, airsickness phobia, Emtephobia

 

 

When I was young, all light aircraft smelled of spew. Now they don’t, why?

 

 

I took my 10 year old nephew up for a local once. He'd been up before with no problems.

 

This time he started to get upset with pain in his ears.

 

We were inbound on decent and I guess they were a bit blocked with the pressure building and not equalising.

 

I changed course and regained height, then decended at a slower rate and managed to get down ok.....

 

I now carry a vicks inhaler Vicks Inhaler for any future incidents with myself or passengers.

 

 

When I was young, all light aircraft smelled of spew. Now they don’t, why?

Better cleaning chemicals and electrical equipment. You can buy a shampoo vacuum cleaner pretty cheap on Ebay.

 

Also the high G aerobatic aircraft like the Tiger Moth and Chipmunk were replace by the aerial cars, so you don't have ex WW2 pilots and the students they trained pulling negative Gs to frighten passengers.

 

 

There's a phobia for that - Aeronausiphobia - vomiting due to airsickness fear, vomiting due to airsickness phobia, fear of vomiting due to airsickness, phobia of vomiting due to airsickness, fear of vomiting, phobia of vomiting, vomiting phobia, vomiting fear, airsickness fear, airsickness phobia, Emtephobia

I've found that not mentioning air sickness before take off defocuses the borderline phobia cases, and if the subject comes up, as it often does from new flyers, I just reassure then the best way to avoid it is to always keep their eyes out looking at the horizon. I've had excellent success with that.

 

 

I took my 10 year old nephew up for a local once. He'd been up before with no problems.

 

This time he started to get upset with pain in his ears.

 

We were inbound on decent and I guess they were a bit blocked with the pressure building and not equalising.

 

I changed course and regained height, then decended at a slower rate and managed to get down ok.....

 

I now carry a vicks inhaler Vicks Inhaler for any future incidents with myself or passengers.

This can be a very serious problem, especially with little children and I know a few adults who've suffered burst eardrums on decent in RPT aircraft.

 

Before the high altitude era the airlines used to hand out butterscotch toffees for people to suck on and that worked, of tell you to hold your nose and blow, or swallow. Doing that can settle a child down quickly, but when it gets to the point that a child is screaming, or an adult is clearly in trouble, you might have to assess whether you can reduce the level of descent and extend the trip leg.

 

 

Turbo,

 

All the reassuring talk, or efforts to ignore it, will not overcome this phobia. I know, because I suffer from it. It is a real drawback when all you want to do is go fly a plane.

 

Reviewing my airsickness incidents, I see that most of them occurred during training when factors, such as being in a strange environment, stress to complete the instructor's tasking correctly and the level of fear of crashing that instructors are keen to instill "in the interests of making you a safer pilot", all mount up. Once you escape the training area and start doing cross-countries, the stress level drops and airsickness is usually only caused by rough air.

 

Why don't many young people get airsick? For the same reason they don't get carsick anymore. Children are travelling in cars from the time they emerge from the Maternity Ward. They are used to that sort of motion. As well, modern cars ride more smoothly than the comparatively primitive cars of the 50's and 60's.

 

Motion sickness is due to either the actual, or perceived, rapid directional changes that the brain misinterprets. That's why you sense movement while sitting still in a theatre and watching that type of movement projected onto the screen.

 

 

I got very sick in the front seat (pax) of a glider. There were no airsick bags, I had to use the pilots hat! Needless to say that flight was cancelled despite some very promising thermals. I went on to get my gliding certificate, but I always took Kwells prior to flying pax after that.

 

Edited to add, I never get sick when flying as PIC.

 

 

All the reassuring talk, or efforts to ignore it, will not overcome this phobia. I know, because I suffer from it.

Sorry; I should point out that my comments related to something less than a Phobia.

 

A phobia is a medical condition, perhaps caused by a bad experience, which the person cannot overcome. Some sessions with a Pyschologist will often straighten out the conscious memory and fix it. For example, my wife worked in an office as a typist, and the typists worked in cubicles with a partition in front and behind. One day three young guys decioded to play a prank with a spider, and blocked her exit. She went over the top of the front partitition, landed on the desk in front and walked out of the company. For years, if there was a spider in the house, she would stay outside until I'd found it. One day, when she was about 7 months pregnant I had a call to say she was in a city car park distressed and wouldn't go near the car. I came in with an aerosol bomb but she wouldn't get into her car, or drive mine. I realised if one day a spider fell down from the sunvisor she would have a serious accident, so we organised a psychologist, and after one visit a week over six weeks she could tolerate a spider in the room, and eventually kill them herself.

 

So if anyone has a phobia about anything I'd recommend that course of action.

 

 

The forced yawn is a good ear pressure reliever. Don't fly if you have an upper respiratory tract infection. I've ruptured an eardrum and it's excruciatingly painful mate.

 

. I've felt pretty nauseous when flying as an Instructor when someone else is doing poorly executed aero's fro an extended period.. When I'm doing the poorly executed aeros it's much better. Just kidding..... I never do poorly executed aeros . Hmmm. but when YOU are doing the flying it's less likely you will feel motion sickness . Remove jumpers etc and loosen collars , be cooler rather than hot and have the fresh air directed onto your face . FEAR and anxiety are also a factor. If it's justified leave the passengers on the ground , and do more training. We don't want to deter future pilots...Nev

 

 

The worst thing is that you want to go flying, or sailing, or let someone else drive, and all you can think of is "Am I going to chuck?" While you are doing the activity, you get sweaty, your stomach churns, and you do those preliminary regurgitations. Finally you do the technicolor yawn. If you are lucky, you'll have a barf bag to hurl into. If not ?. Then you get shitty because once you chuck, the symptoms go away and you are as right as rain.

 

 

When I started flying I nearly always felt a bit crook, but after the instructor said "you have control" I was so intent on flying the plane according to his instructions, that my mind was concentrating on many things that were new to me, but had to be done, and I felt heaps better.

 

I'm sure a busy mind helps the situation.

 

 

I got very sick in the front seat (pax) of a glider. There were no airsick bags, I had to use the pilots hat! Needless to say that flight was cancelled despite some very promising thermals. I went on to get my gliding certificate, but I always took Kwells prior to flying pax after that.

 

Edited to add, I never get sick when flying as PIC.

I did a terrible thing to a passenger when gliding back in early 80’s.

 

We had an open day and I was doing rides...lots of them. Winch launches are quick and there was title thermal activity so my day was a boring repetition of ups and downs.

 

A young man got in and, after I briefed him and made sure he was properly strapped in, we were away. The 450 hp Packard driving the winch had us going up like an elevator and my pax was clearly exhilarated. We talked about it after release as we floated around and he expressed interest in doing some more exciting stuff. I said, “how about a stall turn?”. He enthusiastically agreed.

 

I did a quick HAZEL, stuck the nose down to get 90 knots, raised the nose to the heavens and when all went quiet, kicked on left rudder and the dear old Blanik responded. We weren’t on our back, but it was a really nice manoeuvre that had us coming back in the opposite direction after recovery from the near vertical.

 

My passenger screamed!

 

It wasn’t the scream of excitement that kids give on the Big Dipper. It was more primeval... the sort of thing I often imagined myself doing if confronted by a Great White when diving off Port Phillip Heads.

 

I levelled out and did my best to calm him and he just very quietly said, “Just get me down”.

 

He walked away when we landed and I’ve never forgotten that I ruined what started out as a great experience for an an initial flyer just to give myself a few moments of fun.

 

Kaz

 

PS. My punishment came later that day when another young hopeful spewed out the little vent window beside him. He was sitting in the front seat so it all came back in through my vent window in the back!!!

 

Kaz

 

 

When I started flying I nearly always felt a bit crook, but after the instructor said "you have control" I was so intent on flying the plane according to his instructions, that my mind was concentrating on many things that were new to me, but had to be done, and I felt heaps better.

 

I'm sure a busy mind helps the situation.

I know a couple of pilots that get sick as a passenger but are find as PIC.......