Step 1: Getting Over Motion Sickness in Small Planes

My flight lessons haven’t started yet for a couple of reasons.  First we’re not even to our destination in the mountains (we’re on our way Right Now!).  Second would be the teensy problem that I have with intense motion sickness.

You know how drivers never get sick in cars?  It’s always the passengers.  In airplanes, it’s the same way.  Except it’s worse.  If small airplanes had those “fasten seatbelt” signs like commercial planes, those little lights would be illuminated for the entire flight.  At this point, I “fly the plane” by steering for 30 seconds while Martin snaps a picture or looks up something in his flight books.  After 30 seconds, I just can’t do it any more.

Small planes can’t get the kind of elevation that commercial flights get.  It means commercial planes typically get smoother air, but little planes get the view.  Bigger planes have more surface area, so the bumps that could bounce a little 2- or 4-seat plane wouldn’t jolt those big planes a bit.  Now I’m not trying to discourage people from flying; you have to go up when the weather is best.  Spring happens to be the worst season.  And just like I have never met a female pilot, I have never met anyone who battles motion sickness to the extreme level that I do.  Many people have absolutely no problems; I can’t even look at a map in a car.

I started crying the other day, absolutely convinced that I would never be able to be a pilot.  We were doing a few loops around one of the little airports in the Denver metropolitan area, and I felt so sick.  I could focus on nothing.  It felt like if I tried to open my mouth to speak, something else would come out instead.  My body was numb, and tears were making me worse.  I’d been getting so excited about flying.  Was I going to have to give up?  Was I going to have to tell all of you and all of my family that I was giving up?

 

Martin tells me to hang in there.  I tell him all of my doubts with my battles of motion sickness; he reminds me of how I have overcome it before.  I try to be patient and keep enduring.  I also know that if I want to fly, I have to learn to just do it even when I start feeling sick.

The key to handling motion sickness is to just keep getting in the air over and over.  So that’s what I’m doing.  I have remained in the co-pilot’s seat the couple of times we’ve gone up.  I won’t tell you how many times I’ve washed out our designated motion sickness bucket with a lid after landing.  But I will tell you this:  we’ve met some awesome Colorado cowboys and seen some beautiful Utah canyons.

Yep – we slipped away for the weekend and joined our friends from Germany one last time at Canyonlands and Arches National Parks.  Don’t suppose you’d all like to see some aerial pictures of those parks now, would you?