Well, after thousands of airplane flights and hundreds of
glider flights, I had never been airsick. Even during
aerobatics, never a problem (of course, I wasn't
doing them for 2 hours, except when doing glider stuff!)

A couple of months ago, I was in a DG1000 on a mildly
rough thermal day. It was my first flight in the wonderful
glider, but I was queasy starting all the way from takeoff.

Well, it was also hot, and I drank perhaps a pint of cool
water. About 2 hours into the flight, I vomitted
(very professionally) into a tidy bag designed just for
that purpose.

Fortunately the front-seater was a perfectly capable
pilot, and really he was flying anyway.

After landing about an hour later, I tried to figure out why.
I was completely puzzled by this.
I'd been in similar conditions, heat, thermals,
tight banks, etc. If anything, the DG1000 had a much
BETTER ventilation system than most gliders.

I finally figured it out later that night. I had
a big bump on my head. It turns out that right before
takeoff, I had left the canopy open and leaned
left to buckle my harness and WHAM! The canopy
gave me a very hard whack on the back right
quarter of my noggin. Stupid rookie move.
It hurt, and I swore, but we
were ready to go, and so off we went.

So I'm certain I had a bit of a concussion right
before the flight, and this is what made me airsick.

Boy, I'd never considered this or experienced it before.
I tell ya, if I'm hit in the mellon again right before
a flight, I think I'm gonna call it off...

In article .com,
wrote:
Sadly the two are related. Your physiology affects you psychology and
the converse. The usefulness of drugs probably indicates that the
airsickness starts as a phisiological problem, but my own experience is
that it is exacerbated by tension, ie, the fear of getting airsick. For
those who prefer not to be drugged while PIC, there are, in fact, a
number of methods to reduce the additive physiological effects of
psychological tension. I am aware of the Alexander Technique. I'm sure
there are others.

If you have difficulty imagining this relationship, consider stage
fright. The symptoms are almost identical to motion-initiated nausea.

A question for those who get airsick... after vomitting, do the
symptoms ease? Or does the nausea remain?



--

------------+
Mark J. Boyd