Virtual VERTIGO . . . Oh its real !!!
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Had this feeling to some time ago. Flying in formation in clouds, I had my total focus on my lead and had the felling we were in a constant climb. No way near the situation you were in regev, but to have that feeling in a sim was a wow sensation.
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Today for the first time i experianced a VERTIGO during a mission.
I have to say that it was very strange feeling, very realistic and exciting.Night mission, over the sea (South of HAEJU AB), flying at 22,000ft.
Made a steep turn at high speed . . . started fine and suddenly the alttitude warnning is ON (i set it to 20,000ft). when i heard it i was at 8000ft so the warnning was ON sooner but noticed it very late.
Wow, i was confused. I pull the stick and the alttitude is going down . . . WTF ?
Haeju area has heavy AD so the first thing that come to mind is that a missile hit me and controls is out . . . but there was no RWR sound and no “BOOM” sound.So first thing i did was to take the engine power to minimum, while i watched the instruments i noticed the Attitude indicator looks “strange” . . . at this point i new i was in a VERTIGO situation and it was easy to recover.
All the above happened for a few seconds, i really felt lost and clueless and a carsh into the water was very close.
I am from israel and there was a famous fighter pilot that crashed into the waters of the medditeranin sea years ago. The investigation conclusion was that it was due to pilot VERTIGO. Wow what a way to go . . .
I play this sim for many years, never stop to amaze me and find new things and experiances.
Just wanted to share
Tip in Vertigo you must trust the avionics , ADI and STBY Altitude indicator. If not then First thing “RELAX” put the aircraft 0 level ladder then see in HUD is it - 5, -10 pitch ladder above the horizon then you are upsidedown
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Had it happen to me when flying the MiG-19 in DCS recently. I was fighting some MiG-15s above the clouds, and the dogfight descended into the cloud deck… Long story short, I went into the clouds, and I made a mistake of trying to complete the maneuver instead of checking the instruments. Before I knew it, I was flying sideways towards the ground. Bonus point, I was in VR, which made for a really confusing experience.
It’s easier to lose your bearings in VR because you don’t have the physical cues, and the MiG-19 doesn’t have a HUD, meaning the proper thing to do when you enter the clouds is to go heads down, which is counterintuitive in a dogfight.
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Not trying to hijack the thread, but I’m glad you still hear booms, I can’t since 4.34.
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Today for the first time i experianced a VERTIGO during a mission.
I have to say that it was very strange feeling, very realistic and exciting.Night mission, over the sea (South of HAEJU AB), flying at 22,000ft.
Made a steep turn at high speed . . . started fine and suddenly the alttitude warnning is ON (i set it to 20,000ft). when i heard it i was at 8000ft so the warnning was ON sooner but noticed it very late.
Wow, i was confused. I pull the stick and the alttitude is going down . . . WTF ?
Haeju area has heavy AD so the first thing that come to mind is that a missile hit me and controls is out . . . but there was no RWR sound and no “BOOM” sound.So first thing i did was to take the engine power to minimum, while i watched the instruments i noticed the Attitude indicator looks “strange” . . . at this point i new i was in a VERTIGO situation and it was easy to recover.
All the above happened for a few seconds, i really felt lost and clueless and a carsh into the water was very close.
I am from israel and there was a famous fighter pilot that crashed into the waters of the medditeranin sea years ago. The investigation conclusion was that it was due to pilot VERTIGO. Wow what a way to go . . .
I play this sim for many years, never stop to amaze me and find new things and experiances.
Just wanted to share
Now, that’s IMMERSION, Regev ;). I remember one night right after I got my backlit keyboard I was doing a night mission and really getting into it. The next thing I know is I feel like I’m flying sideways, but I wasn’t. I’m glad I had some altitude to play with. Like Geraki wrote, go on the instruments. But, it took me a moment to realize I was getting vertigo in a flight sim!
BTW, kudos for writing about it. When it happened to me I just thought I was nuts! -
Tip in Vertigo you must trust the avionics , ADI and STBY Altitude indicator. If not then First thing “RELAX” put the aircraft 0 level ladder then see in HUD is it - 5, -10 pitch ladder above the horizon then you are upsidedown
I think more important first is to know that you are in a VERTIGO situation.
Once you do that, like you said, watch and trust your avionics and recovery is easy. -
But, it took me a moment to realize I was getting vertigo in a flight sim!
BTW, kudos for writing about it. When it happened to me I just thought I was nuts!Indeed, the feeling was very real, i was lost for a few seconds . . . my brain fooled me and after a while made the correct steps to get out of this bad situation.
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Not trying to hijack the thread, but I’m glad you still hear booms, I can’t since 4.34.
Oh, there is a boom, big boom
My favorites missions is over heavy AD areas, like the SEAD/DEAD missions . . . so i know a thing or two about this BOOMSSSSSS hahahah -
Indeed, the feeling was very real, i was lost for a few minutes . . . my brain fooled me and after a while made the correct steps to get out of this bad situation.
…dang right it’s real - I’ve come close to outright puking standing alongside a Trainer cockpit and getting my inner ear out of sych with the visuals - which means you must have a really nice visual setup!
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I discovered a long time ago that if I play a flightsim with lots of dogfighting and violent manovering for a long time that if I drive my car shortly after, instead of just sitting there, I’m always leaning into the corners as I turn the steering wheel etc as if the car is banking.
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…dang right it’s real - I’ve come close to outright puking standing alongside a Trainer cockpit and getting my inner ear out of sych with the visuals - which means you must have a really nice visual setup!
Its the main reason I don’t invest in a nice VR headset. I used to have to take ginger pills before playing FPS games when they (games like Doom and Wolfenstein) first came out and also happens when I instruct new drivers on the race track, before they learn to be smooth with inputs…
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I thought vertigo was the sensation of spinning and loss of balance (which of course is loss of orientation) often accompanied with nausea. With vertigo wouldn’t you be constantly changing orientation to counteract the feeling of spinning or turning. If you are flying sideways and maintaining that profile isn’t that a loss of SA? Did you actually feel dizzy and notice things spinning?
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I thought vertigo was the sensation of spinning and loss of balance (which of course is loss of orientation) often accompanied with nausea. With vertigo wouldn’t you be constantly changing orientation to counteract the feeling of spinning or turning. If you are flying sideways and maintaining that profile isn’t that a loss of SA? Did you actually feel dizzy and notice things spinning?
I just checked it and you are correct.
I think i experianced what called “Spatial disorientation”. -
Interesting Thead indeed
surely it easy to lose your SA while no-visual + quick position change, But its not a real vertigo, let’s hope we will never get to this situtation in RL to be able to say that we “know” how does it feel :uham: -
So…I’ve had the opportunity to pilot a RL fighter from the back seat and experience vertigo both in the Trainer and the actual aircraft, while flying through RL clouds. It’s pretty much the same in both situations, however the manifestations can differ from both instance to instance and individual to individual. It’s also something you can train yourself out of - in a lot of cases. You can also talk yourself both into it and out of it…and I’ve had some experience with getting people to talk themselves out of it in Trainers. It took me a bit, but I (and a lot of others I know that have had enough experience) have been able to train myself out of leaning when standing inside a Trainer dome and someone else is flying - and you can tell the degree of self discipline people have by watching who is leaning and who isn’t in such situations! Like most people I’m most easily fooled in clouds or at night.
Physiologically, it all starts with your inner ear and your eyeballs getting out of phase/synch. Your visual cues are your strongest instinct, and this is why it’s far easier to get into the “vomit zone” with a VR headset - you are both getting peripheral visual cue (angle rate) inputs and moving your head, which sets up conflicting inertial differences in your inner ear. This is what happened to me when I had to walk out of a Trainer before I puked, as described.
In my airborne case - all I needed to do was to look at the attitude indicator and let my visual cue override what my inner ear was telling me (for about half the flight I had the sensation in my butt that I was always turning/leaning left). And this is why “you have to trust the instruments” and look at them. As stated, its your visual cues that are the strongest…so what I do to handle spatial D is to simply ignore my inner ear. This works for me but not ALL the time and I can still be fooled, as noted.
Long before I started flying, I was also a Varsity trampoline specialist…then much later I became a skydiver. So my experience and training with separating my inner ear from my eyes started very early…when skydiving ALL I rely on is my vision…I don’t even hear things until my chute opens. So my approach has always been selective desensitization of senses, even though I didn’t really know or understand what I’d been doing until I started flying and it was explained to me.