Student Keeps Getting Motion Sickness

Defer to Dr Bruce above for advice. I can only offer two maybe helpful things. I love roller coasters, never get sick on them, and never had any trouble flying except for 2 instances in training. One was a bunch of stalls in a row, in a cub. No idea why, but just felt funny, like my tummy was numb, so I said "hey can we take a break for a while, I feel funny", and we did and I was good. Second I was practicing turns about a point, solo, for like a hour. No kidding, I wasn't great at it, so I'm orbiting around like I'm on a string. Anyway, same thing, I felt a little weird so I just flew straight for a while. Rambling point being it may just be a thing about particular maneuvers or duration or repetition and it'll get better.

Second story is from a history channel show, maybe 20 years ago, about WW2 fighter pilots. One of fellows, as modest as anyone could possibly be, said that the first time he flew the P-51 he threw up all over the inside, and felt like a complete jerk. He said crew chief just said "I've seen worse" and it wasn't a big deal. The other thing I remember him saying was that he loved the airplane, but really didn't like strafing airfields, with all the AA coming at him. Yeah, I kinda bet. Hell of a guy.

So with the ww2 guy, your student is in good company.
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
Fun Fact:
Bob Hoover taught himself aerobatics to get over his problem with airsickness.

Note: I an not suggesting someone should attempt self taught aerobatics - yes Bob Hoover got away with it (he did peal the fabric off the top of a wing once), but neither you or I are Bob Hoover.
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This student pilot only has 12hrs under his belt. He very well MAY be the next Hoover. Can you imagine the fame of being the instructor who discovered him?

Send him up to do some solo aerobatics. He may cure himself and become the next great thing. Or he may not. Either way, though, problem is probably a non-issue after that.



* The above was written completely in jest and was in no means intended to be interpreted as professional advice.
** I was going to address the above sentence to those w/o a sense of humor. Then I remembered, they are the least likely to recognize they have no sense of humor.
 
I'm just thinking out loud here.... I think you said earlier that he's fine just doing pattern work. I would think it might be helpful to just do more of that!
I would assume that also means he's fine for cross country type flying...straight/level...std turns, std climbs and descents... I would think there's a good chance of just getting more comfortable with the movement over time.... a little turbulence etc... maybe ease into some steeper turns now and then....a slip for landing....just to get more acclimated to the motions...and to build confidence in the aircraft.

Yeah, so it might delay solo a while.... but so what? it's just hours and he might be able to "catch up" later...just doing things a bit out of order perhaps...
 
My wife has terrible motion sickness she can't even look at a phone for more than few seconds while riding in a car so she usually drives on long trips she doesn't get sick if she drives. When we got scuba certified we tried everything to get her out on a boat, but nothing worked bands around the wrists, Ginger, Ginger ale soda didn't work, and Dramamine and other over the counter drugs just made her too sleepy. I've never seen anyone that gets so motion sick she gets sick watching a boat while standing on a dock. She gave up scuba diving since no way to do it safely while vomiting from a boat she can shore dive how we got certified.

The only thing that seems to work is drinking alcohol obviously can't dive after drinking although I know people do it. Works out okay on a snorkel boat few shots of Tequlia she is good for an hour or two.

I wonder if your student is able to ride in a car and play a video game on a smart phone without getting sick? If he can do that then it may not be just motion sickness causing it. He might not be truthful with you just maybe anxiety.
 
kell490 said:
I wonder if your student is able to ride in a car and play a video game on a smart phone without getting sick? If he can do that then it may not be just motion sickness causing it. He might not be truthful with you just maybe anxiety.
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Or it could be that the student gets airsick and not carsick. A person who never gets carsick could easily get airsick or seasick, despite no previous signs of a tendency to motion sickness, because they are two very different experiences.
 
TCABM said:
Seen it before. I'd recommend the student rule out inner ear problems with an ENT before going much further in training. You can try a DIY barany chair to see if that induces motion sickness symptoms.
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A Barany Chair WILL induce motion sickness.
 
A classmate in UPT got sick every flight, as in fill a bag or two per flight. A couple of flights he ran out of bags and had to use his glove.

After X number of flights, they told that was it, if he got sick on the next flight, he was OUT. He never got sick again.

There are the TransDerm Scop patches. They need a prescription. During the 90s, I hosted a group trip to Sky Warriors to do air combat flying. About half the group were not pilots (all were serious sim fliers) and only flew that one time per year. The TransDerm Scop patches worked well to allow them to go all out for the first flight for the full time. On the longer trips, several tried later flights without them and were fine. It got them through the initial flights where the body was no up the the G and maneuvering.
 
Pinecone said:
A Barany Chair WILL induce motion sickness.
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Yep and cheaper than doing in the air. Part of the reason I recommended an ENT eval to was to rule out physiological causes.

There are techniques with a Barany chair to acclimate to vestibular disruption. There’s also other vestibular rehabilitation therapies to deal with injuries to the system.

I’m not really a fan of sucking it up in the cockpit. Isn’t fun for the student, inhibit learning retention, and create reactionary/fear-based behaviors that results in an overall negative learning evolution.
 
TCABM said:
I’m not really a fan of sucking it up in the cockpit. Isn’t fun for the student, inhibit learning retention, and create reactionary/fear-based behaviors that results in an overall negative learning evolution.
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That's why I liked using Dramamine early on. The non-drowsy stuff kept me alert enough to learn just fine, and I think I would have at least tripled the amount of times being sick during flight if I didn't use it. It is also a cost consideration. If I am very ill, the rest of the flight has zero (or even negative) value. I was honest with my instructor, and was able to wean myself off of it by reducing the dose over time before soloing.
 
SkyChaser said:
Or it could be that the student gets airsick and not carsick. A person who never gets carsick could easily get airsick or seasick, despite no previous signs of a tendency to motion sickness, because they are two very different experiences.
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Does he get motion sickness going through same maneuvers when someone else is the PIC. If not then unlikely to be motion sickness. Anxiety can cause someone to vomit.
 
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Another thing to try if all else fails. I have worn one of these the first time I flew aerobatics and felt that it helped.
www.pilotsofamerica.com

Thinking about a Reliefband

Anybody use one of these things? Do they actually work well enough to justify the price? I keep getting their (rather attention grabbing) ads on FB. And now you probably will too. You're welcome. My wife gets mild-moderate nausea when we go on long trips. Not bad enough to stop her from...
www.pilotsofamerica.com www.pilotsofamerica.com
 
J. Taylor Stanley said:
I am a CFI with about 1200 hours of dual given, and I have never seen this problem before. He is about 20 years old and in good health, holding a 1st class medical. He has about 12 hours TT now and on about 50% of flights, he gets sick and we have to land. On three occasions, he has actually thrown up. It happened again this morning. He has tried eating before a flight, not eating before a flight. He has tried Dramamine with limited success. I asked him point blank after todays incident if he drinks heavily or does drugs the night before that might give him a hang over. He said he does not. He said he isn't nervous before the flights, so he doesn't think it is that. I told him I think he should pause training until he can consult with a doctor to try to get something figured out. Has anyone seen this before? Any suggestions?
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yes i am a studend pilot, I suffered almost the same thing. give him ginger tea 30min before flight. he is probably stressed. ginger definetely works.
 
Also, a bit of postiive reinforcement. Get him above the condensation line, say 6-7K on an average day. Do 45 degree banked turns up there in the smooth air.....the guy isn't going to continue without something to "fly for" that is POSITIVE.
 
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We had a student that was persistently airsick. It turned out that he was living on junk food. Getting his diet in order helped a lot.
 
People puke for many reasons and in USN training I often did the first couple flights in a new plane during training. Basically stress puking. After that I was fine. I also found a good diet before the flight helped.
 
All of this advice from everyone is really helpful to hear. I’m a brand new student pilot (17 years old) and I feel downright ill as soon as there’s turbulence or a change in altitude. It’s definitely too soon to say how I will adjust to it (as I’ve only done two flights so far). Flying will definitely feel unfamiliar to me until I get acclimated to it, and I never get sick anymore on jets but flying any sort of trainer plane really makes me queasy. I obviously can’t focus on any sort of maneuver when I’m about to puke.

I’m very determined to make this work and there’s probably a psychological component to it as well that I just need to get over. I also get seasick but only in recent years and never as a child. I just don’t know exactly how to approach the situation besides just building tolerance and familiarity. I have many people supporting me that are confident I can do it, but it’s been a rough time so far.

I’m want to keep going with my training but also make sure theres no other underlying issue. If anyone has any other suggestions let me know, this is not a passion I’m willing to just give up.
 
Anna 172 said:
I’m want to keep going with my training but also make sure theres no other underlying issue. If anyone has any other suggestions let me know, this is not a passion I’m willing to just give up.
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First bit of advice...don't get discouraged. This, too, likely will pass.

I felt very "pukey" for my first few lessons. I ended up taking ginger pills a couple of hours before the lesson, chewing ginger gum during the lesson, and wearing seasickness compression bands on my wrists. I have no idea if all, some, or none of this did the trick, but eventually, the "pukey" feeling went away. I don't remember how long it took, but it doesn't seem that it was an outrageously long time. Give some ginger a try. You might find it helps. Most of all, hang in there, and don't get discouraged.
 
Anna 172 said:
…
I’m want to keep going with my training but also make sure theres no other underlying issue. If anyone has any other suggestions let me know, this is not a passion I’m willing to just give up.
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If you’ve gone thru a Barany chair, you may want to consult with an ENT.
 
Anna 172 said:
All of this advice from everyone is really helpful to hear. I’m a brand new student pilot (17 years old) and I feel downright ill as soon as there’s turbulence or a change in altitude. It’s definitely too soon to say how I will adjust to it (as I’ve only done two flights so far). Flying will definitely feel unfamiliar to me until I get acclimated to it, and I never get sick anymore on jets but flying any sort of trainer plane really makes me queasy. I obviously can’t focus on any sort of maneuver when I’m about to puke.

I’m very determined to make this work and there’s probably a psychological component to it as well that I just need to get over. I also get seasick but only in recent years and never as a child. I just don’t know exactly how to approach the situation besides just building tolerance and familiarity. I have many people supporting me that are confident I can do it, but it’s been a rough time so far.

I’m want to keep going with my training but also make sure theres no other underlying issue. If anyone has any other suggestions let me know, this is not a passion I’m willing to just give up.
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Will your schedule allow for you to do short flights every day for a while to see if it improves? Ideally you'll land before vomiting and be able to increase the length of each flight over time.
 
1) A common trigger for nausea in flight is yaw. As it not coordinating and properly using the rudders. Not uncommon, even for CFIs, that have done all their flying in nose wheel aircraft. I had a friend with a Cherokee 180D. We were going somewhere and I was flying from the right seat. He was muttering, so I asked him what he was muttered. He told me he was muttering because I flew his airplane 4 MPH faster on the same power setting. All in using rudders.

2) It could be psychological. Not sure how to get over this. There was a guy in my USAF UPT class that got sick every flight. At a point they told him, this is it, you get sick again, you are OUT. He never got sick again.
 
Pinecone said:
It could be psychological. Not sure how to get over this. There was a guy in my USAF UPT class that got sick every flight. At a point they told him, this is it, you get sick again, you are OUT. He never got sick again.
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Stress puking is a thing. As you get more comfortable and routines build I suspect you'll be fine.
 
Anna 172 said:
All of this advice from everyone is really helpful to hear. I’m a brand new student pilot (17 years old) and I feel downright ill as soon as there’s turbulence or a change in altitude. It’s definitely too soon to say how I will adjust to it (as I’ve only done two flights so far). Flying will definitely feel unfamiliar to me until I get acclimated to it, and I never get sick anymore on jets but flying any sort of trainer plane really makes me queasy. I obviously can’t focus on any sort of maneuver when I’m about to puke.

I’m very determined to make this work and there’s probably a psychological component to it as well that I just need to get over. I also get seasick but only in recent years and never as a child. I just don’t know exactly how to approach the situation besides just building tolerance and familiarity. I have many people supporting me that are confident I can do it, but it’s been a rough time so far.

I’m want to keep going with my training but also make sure theres no other underlying issue. If anyone has any other suggestions let me know, this is not a passion I’m willing to just give up.
Click to expand...
I’ve never had full blown air sickness but I have had that early queasy feeling. And that only happened when I didn’t have the controls. As soon as I was doing the flying, and in control, I felt fine. A low hour student may not feel in control and that doesn’t help anything.
 
I used Bonine when I was sailing with good results. I can usually avoid prolonged periods of turbulence by checking the winds forecast as well as the airmets so I don’t use it when I fly . I do have some behind the ears ointment (motioneqze) that’s supposed to help in my flight bag. Scopolamine made me sick.
 
I puked like Linda Blair my first few flights. I had a brand new CFI that did a LOT of the flying to begin with. Once I was behind the yoke......I never barfed again.

RadialGal
 
I do pretty well if I have the yoke, but no matter how smooth YOU are, I'll probably turn green. Only time I actually barfed was in the back of a T-28. I felt bad about it, but I warned the pilot. He thought a power off stall and an inverted 3/4 turn spin would be fine anyway...it wasnt. I kept it in and worked it back down as he recovered from the spin but there was no way to talk to him though the headset as my mouth was busy. Before I could say anything, he gently turned back towards the field and leveled the nose with just enough gusto to re-levitate my stomach contents. This time, there was no stopping the salami and cheese sandwich and it's Pepsi propellant. I felt bad in more ways than one, but I warned him!
 
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