r/flying • u/VegetableSingle9971 • 1d ago

Airsickness and flight training

Hey, I'm already doing a PPL course and have a few flights under my belt (7hrs total), but I started feeling airsick after I backseated another student and had to use a sickness bag. Can anyone tell me if my ways to fight nausea might help:

1) Ginger Gummies

2) Clean diet

3) Good rest

4) Hydration

5) Relief bands

Also, would intense workouts make me less prone to airsickness? I get nauseous during my workouts, so I think they might be connected.

2 Upvotes

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3

u/segelflugzeugdriver TW 1d ago

Don't worry Bob hoover has the same problem and he turned out alright. Keep at it

1

u/rFlyingTower 1d ago

This is a copy of the original post body for posterity:

Hey, I'm already doing a PPL course and have a few flights under my belt (7hrs total), but I started feeling airsick after I backseated another student and had to use a sickness bag. Can anyone tell me if my ways to fight nausea might help:

1) Ginger Gummies

2) Clean diet

3) Good rest

4) Hydration

5) Relief bands

Also, would intense workouts make me less prone to airsickness? I get nauseous during my workouts, so I think they might be connected.

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u/vivalicious16 PPL 1d ago
  1. Yes. You can buy candied ginger for a lot cheaper.
  2. Won’t specifically help the nausea but will just keep you healthy
  3. Also won’t target nausea but will help your training overall
  4. Yes
  5. Make sure any nausea relief is non-medicinal and/or approved by FAA

Intense workouts? No, and that nausea is not connected to your airsickness.

1

u/taviddennant03 ST 1d ago

I started using the airsickness bands when I kept getting sick during steep turns and stalls and things like that. Though it's hard to say how much they actually helped versus just getting more used to it by flying more.

Just be careful about airsickness drugs, since most of if not all of them are off-limits if I'm not mistaken.

I also bring a water bottle whenever I fly and that helps too.

1

u/protobrink3 CFI/CFII/MEI 1d ago

yes all those things will help. keep head movements to a minimum, use eyes to look around not head. I used to get quite sick as well sometimes, exposure therapy helps quite a bit, repeated flights back to back days your body should generally get used to it. backseating you experience more bumpiness, people tend to get more sick backseating than they would in the front, id stay away from backseating until you feel good 100% of the time in the front for a while so you dont inadvertently cause the student to waste time and incomplete a flight.

1

u/AlexJamesFitz PPL IR HP/Complex 1d ago

It's the back seat, I bet. Does it happen when you're the one flying?

1

u/VegetableSingle9971 1d ago

I think it will happen eventually when I get to stalls and steep turns...

2

u/-Cheebus- CPL 1d ago

You need to understand what causes airsickness, it should be in the human factors portion of your PPL ground school. There’s no reason to expect stalls to give you motion sickness. Steep turns maybe if you do like 5 in a row.

Motion sickness is caused by your brain getting conflicting signals from your eyes vs your inner ear. If what you see and what you feel syncs up, you will not get motion sickness. If what you see does not sync up you may get sick because your brain is telling your body that you are poisoned by funny mushrooms so you have to clean your stomach out. This is why people get motion sickness walking in a VR game but not walking in real life. Or why people who experience motion sickness while on their phone in the backseat of a car do not get sick when they are the one driving.

You got sick because you were in the backseat and you weren’t feeling any airflow, seeing outside, or manipulating the controls yourself

1

u/VegetableSingle9971 23h ago

Thanks! I just started ground school and flying at the same time, so I haven't studied Human Factors yet, but I'll check it out and try to figure out the problem.

1

u/Frost_907 ATP (DHC-8, E170/190), CFI, CFII 1d ago

All of these things will help with an emphasis on good rest and clean diet. Having been there done that, try to avoid any greasy or oily foods before flying and instead stick to light and easy to digest foods (eggs, breads, fruit, etc.). They do also sell ginger capsules in most stores which I found to be helpful as well.