40hrs in 3yrs? But I digress, is 4500’ the highest you’ve ever gone? If so I suspect the problem is psychological (ie, wow! I’m REALLY high!). I had a student who wrestled with acrophobia. The higher we went the more anxious they got. I’m no shrink but what helped was we spent some time discussing their concerns.
The reality is the higher you are really the safer you are. Altitude is your friend. The higher you are the more options you have. At 500’ the ground is mere seconds away and there’s LOTS of hard things stuff to hit. Lose an engine at 50’ requires some really quick thinking. Lose one at 4500’ you’ve got some time to make some really good decisions. I’m pretty sure I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. However you need to believe it. Once you do you should hopefully settle down a bit. Either that or just stop looking out the window
I’m enrolled in a Part 61 program that partners with my high school for ground training and gets me 40 hours of flight time for free, and I started that in 11th grade. I flew before that but only very occasional in order to save costs. 8 hours in the first year and a half, 34 hours since I started the program (so actually 42 hours).
I already did it twice, but in higher elevation areas, so this was the highest I went AGL (Hudson Valley, NY).
Thanks for the help. Tomorrow I’ve got a night XC, so hopefully I won’t have an issue again.
Dan,
Did you feel like you were anxious and nauseous because you were afraid of the altitude? Or are you saying, you typically haven’t had issues but that day you did? I’m trying to correlate the problem because if you have a fear of heights, I would expect you to say flying on an airliner was very difficult for you.
I suspect you were more nervous about the flight than anything. As Adam said, altitude is a good thing and gives you a lot of options should an emergency occur. Try to remember that if the altitude starts to bother you again.
BOCES is a great program, you should consider yourself lucky to have such an opportunity at no cost to you.
I’ve heard others describe it more as a fer of falling, which it might be, I don’t really know myself. All I know is that I love flying and will never go in a skyscraper.
I do know that the higher the better, I guess that I just need to not let it get to my head.
How many other places in the US do this, certainly it seems like BOCES is the only one in the Northeast. Plus, the flight school, Take Flight Aviation is truly excellent as well, it’s a wonderful and unique oppurtunity.
I started flight training about 5 years ago. I really suffered with motion sickness to begin with, any sort of bump or even gentle turn would kick off that stomach awareness and I completely hear you, it’s really demoralizing and the anxiety of it before flights is distracting and kinda kills the joy. I threw up a couple of times during the early stages of flight training, steep turns etc, forced approaches always seemed to get me! The other downer for me about motion sickness is that it is exhausting. After the flight, I’d feel wiped out for the rest of the day so it would impact other work or study I had going on.
However, if you are willing to suffer through it a little, it will get better with exposure. It certainly did for me. I am now multi-IFR and CPL holder. From time to time I occasionally get some motion sickness feelings but I can pretty much tackle it now. Here are some tips:
Get your eyes on the horizon as much as possible early during your training.
If you feel unwell and your instructor is flying ask to take the controls and fly straight and level.
Keep your head still, looking up and down, side to side a lot will only exacerbate the situation, try not to tilt your head in banks (this is good airmanship anyway and you’ll thank yourself for not getting in the habit when you are doing your IFR later).
Eat something light no later than 30 mins before flying, no fizzy or highly caffinated drinks.
Ginger works for some people, I think it did a little for me too. I found that candied ginger worked best.
When it comes to the flying yourself, you should talk this over with your instructor. I found that often they didnt really understand the issue and were more bothered about you making sure you didnt throw up or at least got it in a bag.
Explain to your instructor that if you start to feel unwell, you’re gonna need to fly straight and level for a while.
If you don’t feel better, don’t try and carry on to the point of feeling horrendous, call and end to the flight and go home with the experience to that point in the bag.
Lastly, during my CPL test in Canada, demonstrating a spin is a requirement and it is typically followed by a low-level diversion (bumpy). I explained that I was sensitive to motion sickness to the examiner and they were happy for me to take as much time as i needed after the spin to make sure motion sickness wasn’t setting in. People will be on your side if they know about the situation and you just ask for it to be considered.
Can you please share your latest update? How are you feeling now with your motion sickness and are you even stopped using the bands? I felt nauseous on my first two flight and now thinking if I should keep going or no. I appreciate if you could lmk your situation. Thanks and good luck.
Hi Nuri, My motion sickness went away about a week after I made this post! I used the bands and non-drowsy Dramamine to deal with the symptoms at that time, but I no longer have any issues. I Definitely encourage you to keep going! Your symptoms should subside and get better with time just as mine did.
Thank you for the follow up on your experience I just finished my first flight and well halfway through I got the sickness, tomorrow I’ll have my second flight hopefully is not as turbulent as today. Will be looking for the band and non drowsy Dramamine.
