My first blackout

[EagleRJ]

It sounds like you never lost consciousness. When you begin to black out, your vision will go before the rest of your brain, so at a certain point you will still be conscious even though you cannot see. When you wake up from total GLOC, it feels like you have been asleep for hours, even though it was probably only a few seconds.

Using the Energy Straining Maneuver (tightening every muscle in your body below the chest) works best before you expose yourself to high G-forces, if you are trying to remain conscious. It's especially important in civil aerobatic aircraft, since you don't have a G-suit or semi-reclining seat to help you out.

GLOC doesn't usually kill people in GA acro aircraft, since the aircraft will unload the second you release the stick, and normally won't depart before you wake up. As always, there are exceptions (Vertical-8 performed at low altitude).

 

[Immelman]

Max load factor for a 7GCAA is +5.5G... KCAB is probably the same.

I have experienced the same (under instruction from an AF pilot with plenty of t-38 fun time) at about 4.5 Gs.. we never wanted to really go over that to not approach the airframe's max load.. I agree that it is good practice; just be sure whoever is instructing can handle the G-load!!! I found that flying regualar aerobatics, a tolerance of sorts (at least for slightly longer periods of time at those loads) were built up.

 

[Occam's Razor]

ms6073 wrote: "When the pilot is experiencing G-LOC, the risk of CFIT (controlled flight into terrain) or an unrecoverable departure from controlled flight become major factors."

Not to quibble...but it ain't "controlled" flight into terrain if the carbon-based "control unit" (spelled "P-I-L-O-T") isn't controlling. When the pilot goes to sleep during a high-G maneuver, which got us to the GLOC portion of our flight, the whole control thing ends.