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Simulator sickness?

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Simulator sickness?

Old 28th Jan 2011, 17:03
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Simulator sickness?

I have just been reading an article on the BBC website about Michael Schumacher, the Formula 1 driver. In the article it says that the amount of time he can spend in the teams simulator is limited by his susceptibility to simulator sickness.

Apparently he has suffered from this from time to time during his career. The article goes on to say that this is a relatively common occurrence for many people in all fields of simulator activity including military, aircraft and racing cars.

I am wondering just how common this is and whether it is has been a problem for anyone who frequents this forum?
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Old 28th Jan 2011, 17:46
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I worked with a gentleman who experienced this. I'd never heard of simulator sickness until I met him, but I did some research after we spoke, and learned that it's a legitimate condition (or at least an accepted one).

He had no problems in the airplane. I went boating with him once and saw him get violently sick. Never in the air, but on the water and in a sim, absolutely.
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Old 28th Jan 2011, 17:50
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There has been a huge amount of pilots having problems with simulator sickness in various armed forces.

Unfortunately, the simulator concept was already implemented in the governmental planning-so it HAD to be a good system..
For that reason, all studies about simsickness showed that there are up to 60% of all pilots (flying in a simulator) suffer from simsicknss-starting with minor appearances like dizzyness that only last for minutes up to severe "flash backs" up to 4-5 days AFTER simulator flights (life threatening if you are driving your car and you loose your balance TOTALLY for a few minutes...

There are a lot of studies-but no one seems to find a "cure" for these symptons.
One theory says that is the difference in the "seat-of-the-pants" feelings and the impressions on the body and sensoric organs....
That could explain why mostly experienced pilots have problems in the simulator-because their bodies/brains already KNOW how it feels, when a helicopter is doing a turn, for example...
In a simulator, you cannot simulate EVERYTHING.

If you´re using a hydraulic movement system, the system has to neutralize itself when reaching a certain extension.
Even if you do not SEE this movement, your body FEELS it-and that leads to disillusion...

There is an interesting study by Dr. Kolasinski from the US Army Research Center, called "Simulator Sickness in Virtual Environments", written in 1995.
Just try google...
 
Old 28th Jan 2011, 17:52
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Its a good question. Personally, I dont have the greatest stomach in the world so anything aerobatic wise leaves me a little green round the gills. Not surprisingly, i was very apprehensive about doing my first type rating due to it being my first exposure to a full motion axis sim. I have to say however I didnt once, at any stage,feel ill during the course. Nor have i felt rough in any subsequent OPC/LPC checks in the sim. The only reason I can see is that im working so hard during the sessions that I quite literally dont have the time nor capacity to feel rough. A lot of course might depend on the particular exersise being flown in sim. In saying that, I quite happily got throughmy FI course too without any issues. Put me in the back of a pitts though and start doing some aeros and i'd probably only last a few minutes
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Old 28th Jan 2011, 22:16
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I used to get SIM sickness as soon as I saw it appear on my roster!
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Old 29th Jan 2011, 02:14
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I understood that this is more due to (the focal length of) wide angle visual systems rather than motion cues.
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Old 29th Jan 2011, 03:16
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Used to suffer badly, but taking a motion sickness pill and wearing a rubber band around the wrist seemed to help a little. The rubber band was suggested by an instructor, who also explained the cause as being the disconnect twix eye and brain - lights in the visuals always appear as the same brightness irrespective of your apparent distance from them ie don't get brighter as you fly towards them.
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Old 29th Jan 2011, 08:35
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Never had a problem with any simulator, this in any seat, even in the back... until CAE introduced a new vision system and I had the worst imaginable vertigo; and I never experienced any vertigo before....
The checkflight was stopped and continued next day on a different simulator.

As a matter of fact, I changed my pair of glasses and all was back to normal while visiting the very same simulator months later....
 
Old 29th Jan 2011, 09:29
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Have never had a problem with sickness when a full motion sim is 'doing its thing', with all the rocking and rolling going on. However, have had instances of the 'leans' when the motion is off, but the visuals are still moving - that can play havoc with your brain and inner ear.

Old simulators that may have a bit of free play in the motion have also given me a few instances of the leans - the motion gear hits a notch in it's geometry but the visuals continue to move. Wibble!
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Old 29th Jan 2011, 09:43
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Thanks for all the replies so far. The study mentioned by hueyracer in his post certainly sheds some light on the subject.

I asked the original question as I had never actually heard of the condition before. Whilst I didn't doubt that it existed I was curious as to how widespread it really was.

For me the most interesting aspect is that more experienced and older pilots are apparently more susceptible to the condition. At least that is what I gleaned from the study hueyracer refers to.

Is this an accurate assessment in your personal experiences? That is, has anyone started to suffer from it later in their career, after several years of having no problems?
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Old 29th Jan 2011, 10:34
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Never sickness or disorientation, but I have always found simulators hard to fly for these reasons
Originally Posted by huey
One theory says that is the difference in the "seat-of-the-pants" feelings and the impressions on the body and sensoric organs....
That could explain why mostly experienced pilots have problems in the simulator-because their bodies/brains already KNOW how it feels,
I have always found the lack of 'real' motion or reaction to control inputs confusing, even if just at a sub-conscious level, which could obviously affect those susceptible. It is annoying that you can regularly see sim technicians with little or no flying experience 'aceing' s/e approaches because they know EXACTLY what numbers to use for power, pitch, trim etc, while we old hairys thrash away coping with 'unexpected' reactions from the software and motion jacks

I have not done enough fixed base work lately to see if there is a difference which could be a logical effect..
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Old 29th Jan 2011, 12:13
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I get Sim Sickness, while trying out Coriolis, on Disorientation Simulator. Leaves me queasy with a dull headache for the rest of the day. Incidence wise, pilots whom I have trained don't seem to admit it :-)
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Old 30th Jan 2011, 14:23
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I did my MCC in a motion sim and having a pretty solid stomach was shocked when I was overcome with the second worst bout of sickness I have ever experienced (the worst, for those who wonder, was on a very hot and stuffy coach between Heathrow and Gatwick on an especially warm and busy July afternoon, I hate coaches...).

What struck me as especially odd was I only experienced this when simulating movement on the ground, once "airborne" I was fine
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Old 30th Jan 2011, 15:38
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In 25 years of sim checks and several type conversions I've never heard of anyone suffering from it so doubt it is at all common.

The only time it did appear was when we used the company sim unsupervised with motion off but visuals on - an early full motion helo sim with parellogram grey scale night-only graphics from about 1982 but we did tend to do pretty unusual things in it. The lack of motion definately did the damage as it was never uncomfortable with moton on.
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Old 30th Jan 2011, 16:58
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I ran the Puma helicopter simulator project for the RAF for a while. It wasn't at all uncommon for pilots to feel uncomfortable in the box because the eyes often told the brain something that the seat of the pants knew wasn't actually happening.

The more experienced the pilot on type before he went in the sim for the first time, the more likely he was to feel ill because he knew what he should be feeling through the seat, and didn't!

One pilot had to terminate the session for the day because he "crashed" the sim from the hover (not unusual to begin with, due mainly to a lack of visual cues). He had previously suffered a wirestrike accident in a Gazelle and "rolling it into a ball" again completely threw him out of kilter for a while.
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