Spacial Disorientation

[Hishighness]

Hello all, please forgive the generalness of this question I'm just interested in the topic as I'm hoping to learn to fly someday. I'm wondering how pilots train to overcome spacial disorientation. Is it simply a matter of mental discipline in trusting your instruments and ignoring the external stimuli or are there techniques and training that help you get used to the conflicting information so that you can ignore them better?

Thank you for your time.

[PilotDAR]

Initial pilot training will always be with visual reference to the surface, so disorientation should not be too much a problem, except perhaps during unusual attitude training. Once Instrument training is undertaken, then yes, a lot of mental discipline is required.

[cgzro]

I have found that I can help my exposure to unusual attitudes in a swimming pool. If you do a few rolls underwater or a loop by tucking into a ball and using your arms to cause forward or backward rotation you can disorient yourself rather spectacularly. Go swimming to get exercise and also do a few of these each time and it may help. Works for me anyway.

[Hishighness]

Thank you both for your replies, and cgzro I'll try that if I ever get started flying.

[geneticistx]

Maybe i'm wrong, but perhaps he's referring to things like spins?

I am early in my PPL and was demonstrated spins last week. The instructor was amazing and said "look straight ahead, and if you look out the side you're toast". So, just getting used to the spin and the spatial disorientation is one thing, then learning to recover from the spin while remaining calm is something I imagine I will be able to do at some point.

[PilotDAR]

Flying, like other activities which involve motion, will come to you more and more with time and practice. You begin with tunnel vision (which can explain why some very basic peripheral things initially go un noticed). As you progress, the the tunnel becomes more common to your visual expectations, you'll see more at the periphery. I can spin and recover a plane looking out the side window no problem, just experience. But, a new pilot has to expand their perception from the center out.

You don't really realize that you've opened up your perception "tunnel" for a while, then there it is, you're flying an excellent steep turn, aware of what's outside, and monitoring your altitude, and still glancing at the engine instruments too. It's a skill built upon experience, and increasing familiarity with the basic picture, so you no longer need to fixate on it.

[Hishighness]

Maybe i'm wrong, but perhaps he's referring to things like spins?

I am early in my PPL and was demonstrated spins last week. The instructor was amazing and said "look straight ahead, and if you look out the side you're toast". So, just getting used to the spin and the spatial disorientation is one thing, then learning to recover from the spin while remaining calm is something I imagine I will be able to do at some point.

Sorry, my post was pretty unclear. lol I was more talking about flying into clouds/low visibility and having to trust your instruments over what your natural senses are telling you when they're deprived of external stimuli.

[lhalliday]

That's why we do instrument training. You learn what situations are conducive to losing spatial orientation, and what it feels like when you do.

When I did my first hood time I noted that my inner ear said "left bank", while the instruments said "straight and level flight". Another time - over open country at night - I had a vague feeling of not being able to trim the plane properly. The response from the right seat was "what do your instruments say?"

For anything other than day VFR you must be proficient in instrument flying, and be ready to switch from external visual reference to instruments at any time.

...laura