Spinning - I finally did it!

[Whirlybird]

Despite having a reasonable amount of flying experience, I've never been fond of anything resembling an unusual attitude in any aircraft. I tried aerobatics a couple of times and felt ill, and I even sometimes get queasy doing stalls. Helicopters are fine; we fly them right way up all the time...this upside down stuff just wasn't for me. But I'd always felt I ought to do spin recovery training, for safely. So finally, a couple of weeks ago, I went out with a sympathetic instructor to give it a go. After the first one I stoped panicking, and managed to get into one myself, which he recovered. But I knew which way we were spinning, unlike the first time, when I didn't even know which way was up. :eek: Unfortunately I then felt too ill to carry on.

So today we gave it another shot. Up to 4000 ft, HASEL checks, Marc did one and recovered, then I did one and recovered it...ALL BY MYSELF!!! And guess what...I enjoyed it!!!! Well, sort of anyway. I still didn't feel that well, and after looking at recovering from an incipient spin, my stomach declared that it had had enough. Still, a successful day on the whole. One more aviation hurdle overcome. I don't think I'll ever want to do aeros, but I'm not terrified of spinning any more.

[Hilico]

'Gratters, Whirly. Haven't spun myself since '78 (and I'm still at such a tender age too...); I thought incipient was worse than full, since you might stop in any attitude and then have to 'get yourself out of that one'.

Did it once more in '94 in an S2B, but Clive Watson was flying and it was like watching it on telly - very, very smooth.

[Pink_aviator]

HI WHIRLY .
GLAD YOU MASTERED YOUR SPINNING.
Do not know if i will ever try it although it is obviosly a good skill to have at your disposal ,and must add to ones overall confidence.

It pleases me that you admitted to feeling quesy sometimes up in the air as I have never dared to admit to my instructors that during some of the manovers they have demonstrated ,steep turns etc making me feel the G force has made me feel queezy to.

(I thought that perhaps made me an unsuitable candadate to fly )

I must add though that when I am practising the moves ,I feel ok .
(must be I am concentrating.

ANY Way (FOR WHAT ITS WORTH )A pat on the back from the PINKSTER

[Whirlybird]

Pinkster,

It's not just you, or me. Lots of people feel sick doing that kind of stuff. When I take up passengers I always have an airsickness bag with me (I collect them whenever I go on a commercial flight)...of course, the first time we did spinning I forgot to take one for me! And it's better when you're flying yourself...though I've occasionally felt bad even then, and yesterday was one of those times.:( It seemed to be the g forces rather than the upsidedown bit...and I used to be a rollercoaster addict...I must be gettting old. :{ Aerobatic pilots have told me it gets better with lots of practice. I'm sure that's true, but I think I won't bother with too much practice! But yes, a good confidence booster, and I think essential for safety.

[Flyin'Dutch']

Airsickness (as all motion sickness) is a common but poorly understood phenomenon.

Most theories focus on the dissociation between what the eyes see and the the body feels (both from your balance organs and the seat of the pants). It is generally accepted that anxiety plays some role and that most people will get more resistent to it the more they get exposed to the environment in which it occurs.

For most people it gets better the instant they can control the situation by physically taking control.

FD

[FlyingForFun]

Hiya Whirly!

Glad you, erm, kind of enjoyed it! Sounds like your body gets used to new experiences pretty quickly, though, judging by how much easier you seem to have found your second attempt compared to the first one?

Here's an idea - why not do some more? Just one or two at a time, once every month or so, until you actually start to enjoy them? I know you don't think they're there to be enjoyed, but really, once you get used to the feeling, they're good fun!

As for feeling queezy, I guess I'm lucky in that I don't often have that problem. The only exception, though was in spin training - specifically, inverted spins. But I stuck with it, did a few more, and after the first few my body got used to the sensations, and they were just as much fun as the rest of my flying is! It's just a pity I can't afford to regularly fly anything to practice them in now.

FFF
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[sennadog]

Not felt sick but my eyes hurt afterwards. I tend to stare out of the cock pit with my eyes on stalks a la cartoon character which ends up hurting for a few hours.

[Evo]

I've found that I can do a lot to help myself feel ok during aeros. If I tried my 'normal' :O couple of beers the night before and two cups of coffee for breakfast then i'd be :yuk: within minutes, but with no booze, no coffee and a decent breakfast i'm fine until the end of the lesson (and I suspect that aeros training is harder on the stomach than normal aeros. The instructor is frequently demonstrating and you'll do extended sessions on things like unusual attitude recoveries).

The one thing that still makes me feel green is a very turbulent circuit - Goodwood is prone to moderate turbulence kicked up by the hills when the wind is from the North, and i've never got used to bouncing around in that. Three or four times round is enough, or :uhoh:

edit: alrighty, sennadog, long time no see - you flying the DA40 yet..?

[wonko the sane]

I'm still in training, but I made myself a promise that I wouldn't take passengers up myself until I've done some kind of full spinning - maybe even a little bit of aerobatics. I was planning on doing it in the months between passing the skills test and the CAA finally delivering the license :hmm:. To me it just seems like common sense.

I find the sickness thing interesting. I remember doing high-angle turns and spiral dive recoveries - it was about a 1hr lesson, and my physical reaction to it quite surprised me.

At some points, especially when doing a bunch of fast emergency avoidance turns, I felt light headed, but only slightly queezy - I have the advantage of a stomach of steel. However, I found myself slightly weakened in the arms, and controlling with cold, clammy, shaking white hands - almost a shock reaction.

This was purely physical, as psychologically I had no issues with, or fear of what we were doing (a trait I'm becoming increasingly concerned about). A minute or so's rest and I'm back to being normal (but tired). But it made me wonder what would happen during full spinning or aeros. Is this the kind of thing the body just gets used to ?

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

I took no. 1 daughter for an aeros session a while back, so she could compare it to a recent Alton Towers experience. She much preferred the aeros, and felt fine. However, it was a turbulent day and the constant bumping did make her feel sick.

I'm amazed so many folk haven't spun. It was in the PPL syllabus when I did it, and IMHO still should be.

SSD

[Evo]

Yeah, you get used to it - especially if you're flying quite frequently. So far I've found aeros to be alright, I expected things like recoveries from the vertical to be much worse than they actually are. Not so sure aboute negative-G stuff, but we'll see...

[stiknruda]

Whirly et al,

It certainly does become less of an issue if you spin or aerobat frequently. I have never felt sick, per se, but I used to feel very, very anxious. Actually, terrified is a better word, with exposure that became anxiety, which nowadays is very rarely present.

I fly 2 to 3 times a week and unless I am transitting then each sortie will have some aeros in it. I guess I spin at least weekly - generally errect but am working on my inverted spins as they appear in the Intermediate competion sequences.

Occassionally one particular spin seems to be a bit strange - more violent, faster, etc. But once I analyse what I did to initiate it, I generally realise that I have flicked it in or started off faster/slower or may have carried inspin/outspin aileron.

I do all my spins with the throttle at idle - I have experimented with using power to fltten them but as a rule try to keep my entries all the same. I do spin both ways but am consistently better at recovering on a specific heading if I go left! Guess I need to dedicate the nesxt few flights to right spins only!


Stik

[witchdoctor]

Aeros and spinning are all great fun. Useful to experience them as you really wouldn't want to end up in your first spin by accident!:eek: Still, I doubt if it were for real that airsickness would be much of a concern for you until a good while afterwards. Funny thing adrenaline.

Always enjoyed spinning, almost to the point that one day I may end up as a small smoking hole in the ground due to laughing all the way down.:ooh: My last spin trip had the FI telling me to stop laughing and concentrate - spoilsport.:O

[mad_jock]

I used to spin the tomahawk while training students.

The first one I did was solo at 6000ft near Perth and all happened very quickly.

After that with the students everything slows down because you know whats happening (and you make damn sure you only have 0.25 tanks full). More fuel = higher rotation rate in the tommy

Now I can patter all the way through the spin, take it from vertical to flat spin and back again. Its more the shock and srange sensations I think make you feel ill.

Personally I don't mind spinning but I don't get a great thrill out of doing it so unless requested by a student I don't do them.

Although on the 4 th lesson of the day doing steep turns my body does sometimes start rebeling if I havn't eaten something for lunch.

I actaully had a chat with my AME about spinning last medical. He was asking about what technique I used to recover. Then started going through one of the "standard techniques". I hopefully now have convinced him to read the POH and do what it tells you to do. Not some standard thing which has been talked about in the club bar.

MJ

[Whirlybird]

FFF,

I think the dramatic difference between my two sessions was due to the absence of anxiety the second time. The first time I was, to put it accurately, terrified! By the second session I knew they wouldn't feel that bad, that Marc would recover the aircraft no matter what I did, and perhaps most importantly, that he wouldn't think badly of me for being a wimp. I've been with instructors who pretend to be nice about it...but I can always tell. Marc said he'd felt the same way himself, and I could tell it was true.

I felt sick the first time I flew a flexwing microlight, and as soon as the anxiety wore off, I was fine, no matter what we did. So there's anxiety, and there's the physical response to high g etc. And it's the second of those that's still giving me problems, no matter what I do or don't eat etc. And I took ginger and homeopathic travel sickness tabs beforehand - on both occasions. Anyway, no way would I spin solo yet, but you're right, I'll ask to do one or two every time I fly with an instructor for any reason; that should work And SSD , I quite agree that it should still be in the syllabus. The only reasons I haven't done it before are because I was concentrating on helicopters for so long, and also....fear.

[Tiger_ Moth]

I love spinning!

A few weeks ago I went up to 8000ft and spun it down to 3000ft (not all at once though, I wasn't allowed to).

You get used to spinning and aeros after doing them for a while, I think though, it's generally easier to get used to things that don't involve much g, like spins than it is to get used to higher g stuff like loops. I'm just about ok on loops and spins now so it only took about 3 sessions to feel fine with it.

[Capt. Manuvar]

My first solo spin was accidental as a Student. I was practicing incipient spin recovery in a C152 that always tried to spin to the left. But on this very turbulent day(even at 4000') it went to the right and i kicked in full right rudder :ugh: .
I panicked and kicked in full left rudder, full throttle and forward yoke. as i pulled back to recover from the dive i used full left rudder to pick the right wing up but didnt check the speed and spun in the other direction but caught it in time. Leveled off and called for joing and landing.
prior to that i had been in 2 spins with my instructor.

[stiknruda]

Yesterday I returned from a fly out and reached the overhead of my strip over 4 000' agl.

Had a really good look around and powered back - span to the right as previously advertised.....


Let it develop and then started counting the turns; 5, 6, 7 and checked the altimeter - just approaching 2 000' and very aware of altimeter lag, recovered with full left rudder

it popped out in less than a turn and I found myself at 1500' and nicely placed to join - what fun we have!

Stik

[BlueRobin]

For most people it gets better the instant they can control the situation by physically taking control.

Give that man a medical degree! ;)

I have to say from my experience, I concur.