Uneasy student, extreme attitudes

[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.