slavinger
Pre-Flight
This happened recently, and really woke me up to the dangers of SD. I read IFR & IFR Refresher cover to cover and come across many articles about SD, and I used to think it wouldn't happen to me since I keep my head movements to absolute minimum, have iron grip on the instrument scan, blah blah. And after 10 years of flying IFR I figured if it were going to happen to me it would've happened by now. So I'm on a x/c, bases at 2k, tops at 10k, I'm at 8k, in the soup. Bouncing around a bit for an hour (enough turb to ask for a block), I ask for 10k, since ride reports indicate a smoother ride at 10k. I'm feeling just fine for the first hour or so, even having fun. (I should mention that I'm a 36 y/o male, non-smoker, in good shape, not prone to motion sickness and not in the hypoxia risk group.) As I get to 10k, I'm in the clear just above the clouds and the cloud deck is slanted. So I figure no problem, false horizon, I'm perfectly good with it, just stick with the instruments. Wellll... 20 or so min later I'm starting to feel like I'm having to fight to stay on the instruments, just getting that nasty disorienting feeling... It's now completely smooth, and I'm feeling worse & worse. It dawns on me that Approach is going to start descending me for the approach pretty soon, and I'm not confident at all that I can hold it together on the approach. Ceilings at my destination are reporting 1,400 OVC. I tell Approach I'm not feeling so hot and ask for a climb to get away from the clouds just below me, but don't want to go all the way up to 12k. He gives me 11k and I carefully pitch up and climb up to 11. Doesn't seem like much but I seem to feel better. I ask to continue on present heading for 5 min to take a few deep breaths, try to relax and clear my head (and take a few bites of a cereal bar and a sip of Starbucks mocha, I figured extra carbs could help). So the controller asks if I'm ready, I say affirm, he gives me a 20 deg turn and pilot discretion to 5k (I would be arriving essentially on an IAF on this heading). Everything is so far so good, the funny thing is as soon as I went back IMC it seems like the feeling was gone, or maybe the carbs kicked in. I'm motoring along, get a freq change, get cleared down to 3k, cleared for the approach, and the controller asks if I need any medical help on the ground. Oh great, now the whole world knows. The first leg of the GPS T procedure goes well, but as I start to turn inbound (90 deg turn) I get that disorienting feeling again, it comes on quickly and is very powerful. It's like getting hit by a brick out of the blue. I literally break out in sweat, my hands all clammy and sort of shaky, I'm thinking "I'm almost there, don't lose it now, everything is fine, almost there". I give tower a call, they can immediately tell something's up, they ask me again if I need any help, I reply that if I get on the ground in one piece I'll be alright. My autopilot tracks the 430 flight plan laterally but not vertically, so I'm trying to descend as smoothly as I can with no pitch changes. It helps that there's no turbulence. Finally at 1,500 I break out of the clag, almost blind from sweat and trying not to vomit all over the cockpit, and manage to pull off a decent landing. Even on the ground I continued to feel queasy while taxiing and for the next hour or so. I almost fell out of the plane, my legs felt like they were made of cotton. I've heard of stories where pilots have kissed the ground after a harrowing arrival, I never thought I'd be one of them, but I really felt like doing just that. Man, what an eye opener! This is after 10 years of being IR and having flown hundreds of approaches, in various "hardness" of IFR.
Afterwards I chatted with a friend of mine who's an MD and a pilot, he said this can easily happen to both newbies and old timers alike, with everyone inbetween, and it can happen randomly from time to time, and come on suddenly (obvious risk factors aside, like colds, ear infections, etc). So there's no way to eliminate this from happening, you just sort of have to live with it and take the risk into account. He also said possible hypoxia at higher alt's probably got to me, with brain consuming O2 quicker due to higher workload (first turbulence, then dealing with slanted horizon, then approach in IMC). As a result of this I decided to fly IMC at lower alt's from now on (8k max, preferrably 6k), and thinking of purchasing an oxymeter and a portable O2 system (recommendations?). Other than that, I'm not sure what else I can do to insulate myself from a similar occurrence.
So have you guys/gals had your own SD experiences? What were your lessons learned?
Afterwards I chatted with a friend of mine who's an MD and a pilot, he said this can easily happen to both newbies and old timers alike, with everyone inbetween, and it can happen randomly from time to time, and come on suddenly (obvious risk factors aside, like colds, ear infections, etc). So there's no way to eliminate this from happening, you just sort of have to live with it and take the risk into account. He also said possible hypoxia at higher alt's probably got to me, with brain consuming O2 quicker due to higher workload (first turbulence, then dealing with slanted horizon, then approach in IMC). As a result of this I decided to fly IMC at lower alt's from now on (8k max, preferrably 6k), and thinking of purchasing an oxymeter and a portable O2 system (recommendations?). Other than that, I'm not sure what else I can do to insulate myself from a similar occurrence.
So have you guys/gals had your own SD experiences? What were your lessons learned?
Yep, fighting every fiber of your being during the real thing is very different from what we experience in controlled env't. BTW, from what I recall, that F-16 crash at OSH a few years ago was SD-related. IIRC climate or pressurization system malfunctioned and the pilot kind of lost it on landing. I have to go back and re-read that.
