U2, I speak from experience, having suffered chronic motion sickness in cars as a child, and every time I went up in an airplane. It was like a curse that no-one else had and seemed quite unfair. This was until I underwent the RAAF desensitization program during basic training. After that it was like my brain and stomach had been reprogrammed, and after the standard 15-20 minutes of maneuvers, concentration remained, and the heat, sweat and palor did not appear – nothing happened! It was great to be just like nearly everyone else, and not impaired.
Occasionally a rare queezy recurrence happens after not flying for a while, but it quickly disappears. Also when not poling the aircraft in aerobatics and g, it is more likely to feel 'a bit off' since one does not receive the sensory inputs from the contols, and concentration levels are lower, so the inner ear ‘signals’ are more noticeable by the brain.
However I have a buddy who did the same program with me, and it worked for him until he pulled g. Seems he had some deeper psych or motivational issues with it – like he was forcing himself, and eventually he gave up the training. Regardless, this sort of program works well to fix the physical problem, and the curse is removed.
The program works on moving the head forwards and sideways in a constant rotating platform, nodding forward, back sideways etc…to stimulate the inner ear and inducing coriolis ‘tumbling’, then recording the recovery times from the illusion. The intent is not to feel sick in the process. The RAAF program goes over 2-3 weeks, about 6-8 times per day of about 5 minutes each time throughout the day. The direction of turn is reversed in the middle of each period. Your spinning chair idea is actually worthwhile, but it is more like going to the local kids park to jump on the whirly thingy. It attempts to accelerate the learning process of the brain to not to respond badly to the inner ear signals, and response times are graphed, and generally seen to drop from typically around 7 seconds to about 2-3 seconds. The RPM is increased when response times bottom out, then response times jump up again, then fall over then next few exposures. This continues until the machine is spinning quickly and response times are bottomed out about 2 secs. Then you jump into the jet and yippee, no sickness (for most). But you must keep some stimulus happening after the program. A fellow on the course got in the device and really pissed me off by charting the response time I got after three weeks, on his first go at max rpm. That is the difference.
The AVMED staff at RAAF Edinburgh (SA) may be able to give you the best advice. Good luck – and never give up.
RM
[ 18 October 2001: Message edited by: Roller Merlin ]