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I wasn't aware of it until one of my earliest solo thermal flights. Since then it has been a major issue on most of my extended flights - but not all of them. I was OK for my 300 Gold C Distance triangle in 1968 (5+ hours) and there have been other flights of up to two or more hours without any problems. On the other hand, I've once had to come down after only 25 minutes, and on a second more recent occasion I've had to announce (as gently as I could) to my instructor at the time that if we continued to thermal (by the book) at his style and degree of aggressiveness, I was going to probably embarrass us both :-( There appears to be no real pattern to the problem. Very tight thermalling is a good recipe for an early heave, especially if someone else is flying. Staying off the grog in the preceding hours/days is a good idea, and a high standard of fitness and "well being" helps. I did try medication in the early days, but it either didn't help or else produced symptoms not good for flying - drowsiness being the most serious one. Being able to really relax seems to help. In more recent times, I'm more "laid back" about my gliding. I'm here because I like it - no ambitions, no goals, no pressure. I'm just doing what I enjoy. Airsickness seems less of an issue for me this time around. I think it was John Cooper who wrote a quite useful and encouraging article on the problem in AG some considerable number of years ago. The idea was to come down at the first sign of the symptoms, and slowly (hopefully) thereby increase the time it takes for them to appear. It worked for him. Sea sickness seems for me anyway to be a less serious problem, not that I have the opportunity to test it all that often. I've had two ferry crossings in recent times which were "adventurous". The second one was serious enough for several vehicles - my own being one of them to shift during the voyage, but I was not adversely affected myself. Perhaps the answer is in perseverance. One of my amateur radio friends in New Zealand takes his yachting rather seriously. He's sailed around the world twice - once solo, and most of it solo in a second trip. He is (to quote) "as sick as a dog" for the first two days at sea. After that he is OK for the rest of the adventure. I guess if you really love what you are doing, you find a way around things that get in the way. Terry |
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