Uneasy student, extreme attitudes

[flywithastick]

Looking for some suggestions. I've got a new pvt student who seems to be hitting a wall dealing with/overcoming an uneasiness with extreme attitudes. Judging by the look in her eye and her description of what she's feeling, there's some motion sickness developing.

The maneuvers bringing this on are the apch and dep stalls. Steep turns aren't too bad, but have contributed though.

When she get's quiet, we knock off the maneuvers, head back to the field and finish up with some T&Gs.

demo'd and she's followed up with numerous mild power off stalls, quite a bit of slow flight, a couple of mild lazy 8's and some shallow stall turns. All was done in an attempt to put her at ease in dealing with the more extreme attitudes experienced with stalls, steep turns, etc.

I'm thinking about recommending she get one of the wrist band motion sickness devices. She's got 5 hrs dual with me, plus a few others from other random flights before. Very logical thinking person (engineer) who understands the physics. Very nice plane, so there are no aircraft integrity concerns.

Any suggestions?

 

[chawbein]

Is it motion sickness or confidence with correctly performing/recovering from the maneuver?

 

[flywithastick]

Good question. Not totally sure, but the end result is apprehension and feeling ill. She's pretty good at holding altitude and airspeed. Made several good landings already. So she's showing ability in those areas, which I've pointed out to her in order to build confidence.

 

[chawbein]

I began to get "uneasy" when doing departure stalls. As a matter of fact, I haven't done one since my checkride. I had no problems doing them in the C-150 and one of the 172's, as a matter of fact, I enjoyed them. I ran into the uneasiness when I started doing them in the "other" 172. I swear this plane flew totally cock-eyed, no matter that I kept the ball centered, the wing ALWAYS dropped and quickly when the stall occurred. I was surprised by the behaviour of the airplane, like it "bit" me. After that, I was uneasy about stalling that airplane up to the checkride. On the checkride, I got over it. I guess that mainly you could try lots of repitition so that she gets comfortable with being in unusual attitudes (short intervals over a long period of flights).

By the way, what's your CFI Rate again?

 

[rltoma]

Hi ,I seem to get motion sickness when it gets very hot (did my multi here in August and the OAT was 104 on the feild) What helped me was ginger ale. Just my 2 cents

 

[flywithastick]

Chaw -

Rigging/trueness of the plane becomes really apparent when you approach a stall. Taught a guy in a -150 once that almost couldn't be stalled straight ahead with power on. Not sure that plane hadn't been really bent at some time prior. It finally bit the dust when the engine quit on a flight shortly after this guy's checkride. sure glad it didn't quit on one of our night cross countries. kind of gives me the willies thinking back on it.

My rate is $25/hr, generally speaking. Double for you!

Thanks for tip on the ginger ale. Might give that a try.

Further question about building confidence. Does anyone believe I should continue to try and build my student's tollerance by:

further low key (mild) flying, or

continued pushing into the smooth and easy, but more extreme attitudes in order to build confidence/tollerance

 

[rltoma]

My personel perspective on the issue of unusual attitudes is from my personel experience, for whatever that's worth. When I was working on my commercial certificate, I had good fortune to aquire a new instructor. My "new" instructor had been teaching since 1962 and he dicovered that I was a bit apprehensive to moderate turbulence, and prone to motion sickness ( I never threw up, but I have gotten green at times, especially when it got hot) his solution was to toughen me up by easing me into more and more situations that required me to focus on the manuevers while getting bounced around, he only let me off the hook when I became to uncomfortable, but he let me know that if I wanted to succeed, I had to buck up. Eventually, I got over my fear of turbulance and abrupt manuevers, and I now have much more fun flying than before. We worked allot on my basic flying skills like slow flight, crosswind landings, anything that required more rudder skill, which helped me feel much more in control of the aircraft, which in turn eased my apprehensions. I don't know if this will help your student but I thought I'd again throw in my 2 cents worth.

 

[tarp]

Talk with your student.

Motion sickness should be there all the time but would be exaggerated any time the airplane turns - usually the steeper the turns, the quicker the onset of motion sickness.

Motion sickness will definitely be defined as being both "quesy" and "dizzy".

Contrast that to what I would call student "hypertension". The nervousness about the airplane in unusual attitudes is usally induced from the students own fears.

The hypertension sickness will be every bit as real (upset stomach, retreat to quiet, sweating, etc) but usually is not described as being "dizzy" (head swimming, swooning, whatever the description).

Motion sickness can be reduced with the drugs and band and other gizmos but in pilots usually just disappears after repeated exposure. Once the brain figures out what all the new movements mean, it gets less sensitive. If your student is suffering from Verigo, Motion Sickness, etc; then you would suggest the braclet (placebo) and work on slowly increasing her tolerances to both turbulence and turning. Don't do stalls and such until she can routinely take other inputs such as steep turns.

Hypertension (nerves) are a completely different realm. There is a fear - usually of the unknown. The fear is so intense that it causes palpable reactions.

Fear of the unknown is conquered with knowledge. I had a student who was completely unnerved by turbulence. If the airplane so much as rocked on takeoff, the entire lesson could be scrubbed. After three painful lessons, I gave the student my own "fundamentals" book and assigned him to give me a complete report on static and dynamic stability by the next lesson. We spent an hour on the ground talking about all the natural stability in the airplane and then we went flying. I never heard another squawk about turbulence.

I also get many students who have "heard" about stalls from "others". I get all the details of what the student "thinks" is going to happen and then I "teach" the proper lesson. No fear, no what-ifs, no this will turn ugly and spin....just an aerodynamic stall that if we do nothing, the airplane will recover from.

Always replace fear with knowledge. It also helps if the CFI does not translate his/her own fears into a lesson.

Good luck with your student. Good to see you care - that may translate into a loyal customer for you down the road.

 

[VNugget]

I think it's about time to demonstrate a properly executed Lomcevak. That'll break her in!

 

[jdog78]

Just to clarify, "hypertension" is high blood pressure. If she tells her AME she has hypertension, he'll take away her medical!

It sounds like this student is extremely apprehensive about anything other than straight and level. I agree with some of the posters that a good approach to this would be to keep doing them over and over until she gets comfortable with these maneuvers. I used to be afraid of steep turns and stalls and turbulence, as many pilots are in the beginning. But we learn through our experiences that the aircraft won't fall out of the sky when we do these maneuvers. Some people are just lucky to be completely at ease when they fly while others, like me, take a couple hundred hours to feel at home in the sky.

Tarp also made an interesting comment...how do you feel about the maneuvers? If your student smells fear, she'll be afraid, too.

-j

 

[flywithastick]

I think it's about time to demonstrate a properly executed Lomcevak. That'll break her in!

hah!! I thought about that for a second or two - sink or swim! Put her in my RV and get upside down and all twisted up!! -150 would be like a ride in a Cadillac down the highway after that! but business would be a lot lighter.

Thanks for all the advice. No fear on my part. plenty of time in the mighty -150 and very comfortable with acro. But point well taken.

Will do a little more discussion (doing a good bit already) on cause and effect, possible consequences of blown maneuver, etc. and will continue with the exercises to build confidence in maneuvering the plane.

others, please pass on your suggestions. thanks

 

[great cornholio]

First off I would say you definately need to find out if it is motion sickness or fear of the unknown or fear of messing up or whatever else you want to call it. If it is motion sickness then just go ahead and fly around doing some steep turns and stuff like that thats been done before but maybe aviod the stalls for a while. After a few more flights she should get pretty use to the new motions and the motion sickness should go away. However if it is not motion sickness then you need to find out what it is. If it is fear of the unknown then sit on the ground and explain everything as much as you can. If I remember you said that she was an engineer so you can go really in depth with her and she will figure out what is going on and hopefully get over the fear. Maybe she had a buddy tell her about a stall that went wrong one time and how scary it was because the plane was out of control or something. If that is the case maybe she is scared of a spin because if she is an engineer then maybe she has looked too far in depth into the aerodynamics of a spin or something and just scares the hell out of her. If that is the case then you should talk about spins on the ground. Maybe even "accidently" let a demonstarted stall "accidently" get into an "accidental" spin. One time i had a student that was scared of stalls and so we practiced them little by little. Then one time he messed up and got himself into a spin he let go and then after I got out of it and recoverd and got back into straight and level flight he was like "wow that was kinda scarey cause I wasnt expecting it, but from what I read in the book I thought it was gonna be like a lot worse" after he figured out that stalls wouldnt end up too much more "fun" than that he was never scared to do another stall again. So I guess moral of the story is maybe she is hyping all of this up too much from what she reads maybe if she sees it she will lose some of the fear.

 

[flywithastick]

Here's a little feedback on the situation. I asked her last night about her specific sensations. It appears that there's a little motion sickness, but mostly apprehension. We also talked about her history with small planes. Seems one of her buddies took her up in a Cessna some time ago and demo'd zero g pushover. It apparently caused some concern. Particularly since it seems to be the pushover/nose drop in the stall demos that seems to bother her most.

Spent quite a bit of time talking yesterday before flying. Continued our exercises (in the air) with her flying near the bottom of the green arc with smooth and easy banking and yanking. I told her just have fun with it. Look out the front and side windows. Let her brain get comfortable with what it's seeing and feeling. Pull the nose up to near stall and let it drop. Get used to the dropping feeling and seeing green in the windscreen. In addition to helping with the brain thing, it also brought out some good questions.

toward the end of this 15-20 min session, we did some 45° bank and pull as though we were starting steep turns. Stopped the turn at 45-90° to minimize the vertigo/dizziness.

Seems to be working. At least she says so. Thanks for the input. Might be able to get back on track soon. It's nice to help steer a possible good pilot in the right direction, and not even have to clean the seats & carpet in the plane!

 

[Purple Haze]

Been There

Apprehension or motion -- the problem is the same.
For me, I needed to relax and get some confidence. Repetition helped, but anxiety still ruled.

3 things that helped:

(1) Ginger capsules (from GNC) before each flight.
- a crusty old flight surgeon gave me that tip
- much more concentrated than ginger ale

(2) An instructor who I could see actually loved to fly and encouraged me to relax and enjoy flying.
- it helped to reinforce the "why" (as in: why am I doing this)

(3) On the ground, I had to talk through the flight profile in detail. In the airplane I was just acting out the script I had rehearsed over and over.
- this helped to remove anxiety about what was next

Your student should know that others had some pretty bumpy starts, but in most cases they got used to it and problems ceased.