Tonight I attended an FAA Safety Seminar: Spatial Disorientation in Flight. Spatial disorientation “remains a cause of fatal accidents despite rapid progress in the development of electronic flight displays. The seminar will address this topic. It will consist of two parts, a lecture covering spatial orientation and various illusions and a demonstration of the concepts using a vertigo chair generously provided by the Fargo and Minneapolis FSDOs.” So first we had a great lecture by Jack and then we had a go on the vertigo chair! So you sit in the chair and you have the headphones so you cannot hear, goggles on so you cannot see, and then the chair spins different directions or speeds depending on what the FAA gentleman wants to set it at (he was very nice and said that he would not do anything weird, so no one would vomit! I am happy to report that no one vomited!). I was just on the chair for one minute, but it seemed longer. At first I could tell that I was going in one direction and then another directions, and then I could feel that I was at a angle. In reality the chair went one direction, slowed down, sped up, and then stopped. It take so little for a pilot to become disoriented and not know what is up or down, which proves the point that you should trust your instruments and not what your body is telling you. A very fun night!
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- The Chair!
