Just took my intro flight yesterday! Hard to adequately describe to your family that you flew a plane yesterday Was in the left seat, got to participate quite a bit in the take-off, some solo-flying and learned quite a bit, instructor was well-informed and seemed very confident to me, considering he’s only 3 months into being a CFI.
I’ve done a lot of commercial flying in my lifetime, have always felt very comfortable and very little physical symptoms related to bumpy flights etc over the years…but i did have a bit of a headache, a bit of an uneasy stomach following my flight yesterday. I would compare it to that feeling that you may get as you take the big drop on a roller coaster? Perhaps a bit of motion related symptoms from being in a small plane?
Just wondering if this is normal to experience on your first flight in a small plane? Has anyone felt this way ? Is this something that will dissipate over time? No major symptoms…but I would feel a bit better if I knew this was something that will pass over time. Does anyone have any experience with this type of thing? How have you conquered it?
The good news is I’d say about half of the people who take an intro experience some discomfort. The not so good news is there’s no easy of knowing whether it will or will not pass in time. Some do, some don’t.
Best advice take a few lessons before you dive in head first. It could simply be the anxiety/excitement of it being your first flight. If it is it should subside quickly. If it doesn’t could be something bigger?
Many people experience those symptoms. Often times they go away, but it might take a few lessons tel find out. Bottom line, schedule another lesson or two and see how you feel.
On my introductory flight, I didn’t get sick or anything like that but I did feel some discomfort (the sinking roller coaster feeling that you mentioned). During my introductory flight, we did stalls, spins, and even went into zero G. After he became my instructor, I found out he flew F-18s in the Navy so that explains why we had a little fun in the intro flight. After about two or three flights the discomfort went away.
Go on a few more flights. Show up rested, hydrated, and fuel up. Talk to your instructor about your symptoms. Alleviating motion sickness while flying is usually solved by focusing on the horizon, which is actually 80% of flying in visual conditions. However, it is unnatural for us to do that.
Everyone wants to focus on the instrument panel. When you do that, you take away the visual cues from outside that tell you what the airplane’s attitude and trajectory is. As a result, your brain is trying to interpret what the airplane is doing based on the pressures felt by your body.
Since your eyes are not outside, your brain might misinterpret what the airplane is doing. Anytime two of our senses receive conflicting information, we are more susceptible to motion sickness. This is the same reason why some people cannot read or text or watch movies in a car. Our eyes are fixated on something that is motionless relative to our position, but the car is pivoting around the horizontal and vertical axes.
Doing advanced maneuvers on an intro flight is nothing more than this guy showing off. Stalls? Ok maybe if you’re up for it but spins and zero-G? He had more concern for his ego than for you as a prospective student.
I remember that when I started my PPL training (junior year of high school), I experienced those exact same things. As a matter of fact, I started in Alabama humid summer heat. The worst combo. It blew over for me after several flights. I was also worried too but everything worked out for me and should work out for you.
I am going to addy voice to the spin discussion here and agree that it was completely inappropriate to do spins on your first flight. I disagree with that so strongly that I would recommend not flying with that instructor again.
Yeah he flew me to their practice area and did spins and the other maneuvers I mentioned. Considering I never flew a plane or rode roller-coasters, it was pretty unsettling. I’m just proud of myself for not getting sick
Oh ok, at the time I thought that was normal for an intro flight. Or maybe he was trying to scare me for some odd reason? I did have to end up switching instructors after awhile.
Just want to throw out there that what you perceived as a spin might have been something different. On my first flight, I mistook dutch rolls for lazy eights. What you perceived as a spin may have been a steep spiral. Or some other maneuver. But if it was a true spin - then yes, that’d be highly inappropriate for an intro flight.
Well this is definitely good to know before getting to my commercial phase, I’m assuming that’s an easy mistake to make. Yeah he went up into a turning stall uncoordinated to induce the spin and did 1 rotation before stopping it, he did that twice. After thinking, “do I really wanna do this for months and months?” I decided to take a couple lessons to see. After about 10 hours I switched instructors. Long story short, I realized that the intro flight was pretty over the top and thankfully I dove right into flight training.
Trust me, I spent like 2 months afterwards rethinking what I wanted to do because I was not feeling the idea of doing that for months “so I thought.” It had the same feeling I did after my first varsity football practice.
I’m a 49 years who want to become a pilot and is about to start at ATP. Is anyone know either a forum or website for people learning how to flight in their late age?
Was in the left seat, got to participate quite a bit in the take-off, some solo-flying and learned quite a bit, instructor was well-informed and seemed very confident to me, considering he’s only 3 months into being a CFI.