VNugget
suck squeeze bang blow
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2002
- Posts
- 809
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]So today I had my 5th or so acro lesson, and at the end, when we were about to head home, I asked my CFI if I could fly a steep spiral and pull and sustain max G to see if I could grey or black out. It's just something that I had never experienced, and was really curious about. So he said sure. This was in a Citabria 7KCAB, by the way.
With a 90 degree bank and a hefty nose-down attitude and pulling hard, I may have hit 4 Gs, but the most I could sustain was probably around 3, and nothing happened. Also, the straining from pulling the stick may have been enough to keep my vision intact. I didn't really get any symptoms.
So we decided that he'd fly the next time, while I sat there completely relaxed. That time actually worked. He had the nose way down there, and we managed to sustain 4 Gs. I felt every part of my body sag, and after 4 or 5 seconds, my vision got all fuzzy and bubbly, but I can't really say that I lost any of the color. Maybe a little bit. A bit later, I finally started to lose my vision around the outside, and the grey zone squeezed in farther and farther toward the middle, until the visible circle finally shank to nothing, like the end of a Looney Tunes cartoon. Next thing, I decided to tighten my legs and abdomen to squeeze the blood back up to my head, but just as I started, my CFI unloaded the plane so I didn't get to see the effect.
I asked him to do it one more time, and this time he sustained it long enough for me to completely lose my vision again, and then squeeze it back in. It was neat.
Everything, including the blackout and the straining maneuver, went pretty much exactly as I read about it and expected, except that the "curtain" was grey, and not black. I suppose I'd have to wait a little longer (and/or pull some more Gs) for it to go all the way black. Although I'm pretty sure it's accurate to say that I did black out, since all my vision was gone, and greyout just refers to the loss of color.
It was a pretty cool experience, both as a learning experience and as fulfilling a long-held curiousity.[/font]
With a 90 degree bank and a hefty nose-down attitude and pulling hard, I may have hit 4 Gs, but the most I could sustain was probably around 3, and nothing happened. Also, the straining from pulling the stick may have been enough to keep my vision intact. I didn't really get any symptoms.
So we decided that he'd fly the next time, while I sat there completely relaxed. That time actually worked. He had the nose way down there, and we managed to sustain 4 Gs. I felt every part of my body sag, and after 4 or 5 seconds, my vision got all fuzzy and bubbly, but I can't really say that I lost any of the color. Maybe a little bit. A bit later, I finally started to lose my vision around the outside, and the grey zone squeezed in farther and farther toward the middle, until the visible circle finally shank to nothing, like the end of a Looney Tunes cartoon. Next thing, I decided to tighten my legs and abdomen to squeeze the blood back up to my head, but just as I started, my CFI unloaded the plane so I didn't get to see the effect.
I asked him to do it one more time, and this time he sustained it long enough for me to completely lose my vision again, and then squeeze it back in. It was neat.
Everything, including the blackout and the straining maneuver, went pretty much exactly as I read about it and expected, except that the "curtain" was grey, and not black. I suppose I'd have to wait a little longer (and/or pull some more Gs) for it to go all the way black. Although I'm pretty sure it's accurate to say that I did black out, since all my vision was gone, and greyout just refers to the loss of color.
It was a pretty cool experience, both as a learning experience and as fulfilling a long-held curiousity.[/font]
