Cold...
Posted here as part of my PPL learning experience... I'll be the first to make comment on flight safety etc. and how we should always defer a flight if not feeling 100%...
Yesterday I arrived at FS and was asked, in the usual way, how I was. I stated that I wasn't too bad, but had had slight hay fever during the week and had been a bit bunged up but felt OK. The FI asked if my nose, ears and sinuses were OK - which they were, just a little 'sniffly' - for want of a better word.
We went out and did precautionary landings, PFLs and steep level turns as a consolidation exercise. Towards the end I was feeling a little queasy so we headed home. I put it down to feeling a little bung up and less than perfect ear / eye / stomach coordination.
Approaching the home field, got ATC clearance to enter the zone, joining left base leg, switched to the tower and confirmed as No. 2 to land, we had come down from 3000ft to circuit height then it hit me like a smack in the face.
I had to hand control immediately to the FI. I immediately felt nauseous like I've not felt for years and years. The weather was good, no turbulance etc. just a normal base leg with a single turn to go. My ears didn't hurt but I lost the ability to hear at all well - the R/T sounded distant and muted. The FI made a standard approach and landing. As we got out of the aircraft I found that my hearing was almost zero. It would appear that my ears had bunged up as we had lost altitute and then my balance was badly affected and so the usual stomach / ear-canal / visual messages weren't all in synch.
It took about 15 minutes before full hearing came back in one ear - with a pop, and then an hour or so for the other ear.
I said to the FI that if that had happened on my own I'd have told ATC I was aborting the landing and would request to expedite exit the zone then gain altitude (zone ceiling 2000ft). I would then have had to sort out my options and make another approach - probably by gradually reducing altitude more slowly and then entering the zone at a lower altitude.
I'll accept any flames here but wanted to post as a lesson for all and a clear example of what can / may happen if even slightly bung up with a slightly sniffly nose!