Private Pilot Flight Training and Instruction Flight Training Article Library | Back To 4VFR.COM Vertigo Beware of false sensations. Your inner ear will give you feelings that are overpowering. With low time under the hood you must avoid attempting to extend maneuvers beyond just holding recognize that these a heading or a standard rate bank. Any more may exceed your skill capacity for aircraft control in IFR conditions. Any tenseness will cause the inexperienced to over-control. If you have learned to use trim well as a VFR student you may be able to trim successfully for hands-off IFR flight. An aircraft trimmed for hands-off in pitch can be flown in roll (heading) with just rudder input. Descents are controlled by slow power reductions, only. May cause nystagmus (trembling of the eyes) which makes reading of instruments impossible. Rare but can occur in extremes of weather or flight conditions. Other types of disorientation are illusions such as caused by runway/cloud sizes, shapes, or slope. Unrecognized spatial disorientation is caused by a combination of a focused attention, distraction and instrument fixation. These most often occur in companion with loss of situational awareness due to excessive work load. Recognized spatial disorientation is when the pilot is aware of his disorientation. Being aware means that the pilot should be able make his recovery with power and attitude corrections. Pilots have, over the radio, acknowledged their vertigo and inability to overcome it prior to crashing. Spatial disorientation is considered incapacitating when the attitude of the aircraft is so unusual that pilot is unable to determine the cause, organizing the instrument information, and making control decisions. Vertigo is the #1 cause of Air Force fatal accidents. Vision is the pre-installed vertigo preventative. A moments glance out-the-window is all it takes. This will overcome any sensations from other sources. However, without vision, the organs of balance in the inner ear take over. The semicircular canals approximate the three axes. They contain a fluid that stimulates our senses of angular acceleration in these axes. Our sense of uprightness is done by the otolith organs. Tiny stones affect hair sensors in reaction to "gravity". Otoliths sense linear accelerations, not angular accelerations, and regardless of the direction interpret such accelerations as gravity. In our muscles and joints we have sensors that give additional information about push or pull. Unless one or all of these sensors are confirmed by vision we are on our way to vertigo. The simulation used for vertigo such as the Barany chair, the yardstick on the nose, etc. in no way prepare the pilot for the real occurrence of vertigo. Unlimited motion in all three axes as well as planetary motion for acceleration are required. Even with these in place it is additionally necessary to create a work overload. The instructor should expose the student to simulations that closely approximate the real thing. That is except for safety of altitude, configuration and airspeed. To train the recovery the same forces and psychological pressures must be recreated over and over by inflight simulations. Written by Gene Whitt Flight Training Article Library | Back To 4VFR.COM