John F,
I have suffered nystagmus once whilst spinning (and for those of you like me who need the dictionary, nystagmus is an involuntary slow drift of the eyes followed by a rapid flick back, often caused by rotation of the body). It was following recovery from a flat spin in an Alpha Jet (front cockpit, harness unlocked) during which I had been subjected to around 3g "eyeballs out" longitudinal acceleration. After the aircraft stopped rotating, I could focus on the instrument panel without any problems, but looking at the horizon resulted in the whole world visually "flicking" in azimuth. This lasted for about 30 seconds - very interesting. In the Tornado incident, I attributed my disorientation to a vestibular function caused the very high yaw acceleration, combined with high roll and pitch rates at departure, and then the sustained yaw rate during the spin. I discussed it with the Institute of Aviation Medicine but they had no data on the effects of these high accelerations as they could not be achieved in the centrifuge.
Treadders,
I enjoy reading KF's articles, but when he runs out of stories, my arm could be twisted to contribute to "FLog". Are you at DX in May?
mr ripley,
You raise a very interesting point. Some aircraft, following a mishandled spin recovery that has resulted in a high rotational spin, need full pro spin controls to be re-applied in order to stabilise in the normal spin mode before the normal spin recovery drill is effective (early T67s I believe). An aircraft with spin characteristics such as this would never be given a UK Military Release to Service clerance for intentional spinning. Therefore, you chose the correct course of action.
It is probably worth saying for those who do not know the Bulldog that if, once stabilised in a fully developed spin, you moved the stick only about 1 inch forward of the back stop or release the rudder from the stop by the same amount, the spin would go VERY high rotational and would have a prolonged recovery.
Back to writing the next tale.
Rgds
L
PS. Anyone from the other side of the Atlantic flown the F-18 or F-16 departure demo rides or carried out inertia coupled departures in the T-2? They are interesting rides (especially the Hornet with 10.4 flight control software - inverted falling leaf mode).