Every time I watch some celebrity riding with The Blue Angels, they talk about almost passing out and tunnel vision or throwing up from the "G's".

What keeps pilots from getting tunnel vision?

Does your body just get used to it? Is it just getting your body accustom to it?


It's probably a stupid question to you guy's that actually do it, but I'm curious.

IIRC the Blue Angel pilots do not use G suits.  They rely on tightening their leg muscles to keep blood from pooling in their legs.  I doubt most people on a joyride will be able to accomplish this.

I'm no pilot, but have read a little about it & watched a documentary.  I even stayed at a Holiday Inn Express once.

They work to build up G tolerance, and are also in top physical condition to withstand the stresses.

They are trained to deal with it.

The ones that can't, wash out, my guess.

PT

It's a combination of physical conditioning, specific training and use of the gee suit.

(yep - the blue angels don't use the gee-suit)


At least in the USAF all the pilots have to get requalified on a cetrifuge every so often.  They've got pretty specific requirements for how long they have to last at high gees, and how the high gees are applied in the centriguge (instantaneous g load, slow work up to a specific gee, etc).    Some of the breathing exercises they teach them are pretty interesting.

They pump a lot of iron and utilize an anti-G straining maneuver.

I pulled a couple of G's doing aerobatics in a T-6. It's a difficult sensation to deal with.
I can't imagine pulling 9 G's, especially in combat.

Colonel Hurtz

you breathe like you are taking a hellacious dump to keep the blood in your head

Tighten every muscle in your body while grunting. That's one way we learned to fight G's.

It's easier to take G's when you're flying than when you're a passenger.

You learn to tighten your legs and stomach to keep the blood in your upper body.

You can relax the G's just a little bit when your vision tunnels (the blood goes out of your eyes), and stay right on that edge. (By then, the guy in your back seat is often unconscious.)

You just plain get used to it.

A G-suit squeezes your legs and stomach and adds about a half-G to your tolerance. (It's only good for sustained G's, not instantaneous, so that's why the Blue Angels don't wear them.)

Some days you can take more than others.

I used to lose my vision completely going off the catapult, then it would come back instantly at the end of the stroke. Very strange sensation.

Seems like they do a lot of grunting and straining whilst maneuvering. I assume they are squeezing muscles to keep the blood in their head and torso. Its amazing all the many things they do simultaniously.

I am no fighter pilot but I am a pilot ( duster pilot ) and I don't pull the G's the fighter's do but we do pull a few G's everytime we turn ( between 3 to 4 ) and we do it hundreds of times a day . Being fit helps a bunch , the better fit you are the more easy it is but every now and then  even I have to use some of the grunt type squeeze to keep the blood going.

Pilot's have some colorful term for the straining techique.
It's called "shitting the football", "hunch and grunt", or something like that.

Colonel Hurtz

I asked the same question watching one of those vids where you can hear
the pilot talking, but the camera is on the ground pounder.

While the pilot is running through maneuvers that are literally making the
passenger pass out and eventually puke his guts out, the pilot is talking like he's on a Sunday drive with Grandma. No indication in the pilots voice at all that he's pulling these high G moves.

One guy that did handle it very well was Dale Earnhart Jr. The guy obviously has to
be in great shape, and he didn't have any problem at all with the rough stuff.

Yoo can GLok at 2.5 easily.  Interestingly, the prop driven T-34 has the title of being the plane that has induced the most GLok'd pilots/students IIRC.

So people with " loose bowel syndrome." would make a shitty fighter pilot!  

I saw a documentary on the Blue Angels and their training... the pilots are all fucking ripped, like Commando-ripped. It's so physically demanding to pull 9-G's with no G-suit!!!

I could feel myself rising up out of the seat in the dive and then the big invisible elephant sits on you pulling out at the bottom.

After the first one, I would just take a deep breath and bear down.

The worst part was banging my head on the canopy doing snap rolls.
Even though I knew it was coming, physics wins every time.

Colonel Hurtz

Damn, and I thought this was going to be a thread asking how you avoid needing to piss on long missions.

You pilots can have your G's.  I can get sick on elevators.

Quoted: you breathe like you are taking a hellacious dump to keep the blood in your head

They train to tighten their abdominal and leg muscles. All that grunting is why most of them have hemorrhoids the size of bagels.

They use the force.

You can perform this exercise to illustrate the point.

Have you ever been sitting in a straight-back chair, like in a classroom, and start to zone out?  When I went through aerospace physiology they called it stagnant hypoxia.  Basically, the blood is pooling in your legs.

When it happens, tense your leg muscles.  You can feel your brain come back on line as the muscle tension forces blood back into the upper extremities (aka "head").

Gs will kick your butt in a hurry if you aren't used to them.  I was TDY out at March AFB and met a guy who had a Steen Skybolt.  He asked me if I wanted to go flying, and if I had ever done any acro.  I told him yes on wanting to fly, but I'd never had the opportunity for aerobatics.

When we went up he started me with a slow roll, then a faster one.  Next was a loop.  We nosed over to 160 knots, then he pulled the stick back.  It was waaaaay cool.

The next manuever was a hammer head stall.  Again, nose down, 160 knots, then pulling back into a vertical line.  When we ran out of energy he kicked the rudder and we transitioned from straight up to straight down.  

After pulling out from the dive I remembered a fundamental rule of flying in someone else's airplane: Whatever you take in with you, you take out, and it's easier if it's still inside you.  I'd reached my limit.  If he would have banked hard I would have tossed.  It's amazing how something that's so much fun can make you feel soooooooo miserable.

Quoted: you breathe like you are taking a hellacious dump to keep the blood in your head

+1

Valsalva maneuver  

Quoted: Valsalva maneuver

You might be confusing scuba diving with flying jets.

Flying "Red Flag" missions years ago, pulling G's was a bitch. Sitting down and grunting was one thing, but standing up in the rear of the plane (C-141) while looking out the troop door windows for bogies was awful. The pilots thought nothing of yanking and banking since they were sitting down in the front of the plane...but often didn't think of us poor bastards all the way in the back! I sank to my knees many a time...

If you let yourself black out, you'll feel nauseous for the rest of the flight.  If you keep your vision using the Hic maneuver (the actual name for it given for the noise you make) you'll feel A LOT better throughout the flight.  

After a couple of years, you get really used to the G's and you barely notice them.  I pulled 7.8 while bombing today and didn't notice too much (though, I was wearing speed-jeans).  As for getting sick while flying - having control of the aircraft makes the maneuvers much less nauseating.  If I was a passenger, I'd probably be getting sick every flight.
Matt

Quoted: Quoted: you breathe like you are taking a hellacious dump to keep the blood in your head +1 Valsalva maneuver

Valsalva is what we do to clear our ears on the way down from altitude... much like scuba-diving.  
Matt

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: you breathe like you are taking a hellacious dump to keep the blood in your head +1 Valsalva maneuver   Valsalva is what we do to clear our ears on the way down from altitude... much like scuba-diving.   Matt

good to see you posting again.

Down side from all the G's is the hemorrhoids that fighter pilots are known to get. That and stiff and fucked up necks. My dads neck was stiff the last 5 years he flew hornets all the time.