Airsickness - still common? Why or why not?

Factual Questions
21

Exactly. I shared the link below in another thread, a few days ago, where someone was hoping to find a mobile app that would able to be alert them to a forecast of cold temperatures fifteen days in advance.

Weather forecasts have gotten a lot more accurate over the past few decades, thanks to better mathematical models, and better information from satellites and ground stations, but the further out in the future you go, the less reliable they are.

The “day 7 forecast” is, according to this site (an educational site for kids from NOAA) typically about 80% accurate, but is beginning to rapidly drop off in accuracy at about that point.

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22

IME, a lot less than that; at least, unless you count, say, “80% chance of rain” as being accurate when there’s no rain – which of course it is technically; but that certainly doesn’t mean that it’s possible to tell on Sunday whether it’s going to rain the next Saturday.

Around here, for that matter, it can rain 2" on one side of the hill and a tenth of an inch, or nothing at all, on the other side – and they can’t tell even a few hours in advance which side will be which.

And while a 7-day or 5-day forecast for a low of 40ºF is highly unlikely to turn into an actual 90ºF or 15ºF: it may, by the time we actually get there, turn into 31º and a hard frost; usually after several days of a gradually lowering prediction, but sometimes the frost warning doesn’t show up until shortly before dark. Of course around here you also have to adjust for your particular microclimate.

23

I’ve mainly used weather underground* for many years, and I’ve found it to be about 90% accurate for detail within each day (temps and precip) one to four days out, 80% five to six days, and 70% seven to eight days. I wouldn’t bother looking at nine days or more.

It helps to look at the hour-by-hour graphs (not daily summary statements), and to understand what percentage probabilities mean (regarding precipitation).

That’s my experience in my neck of the woods, anyway.

*wunderground.com

24

It certainly does help to understand what percentage probablilites mean; but part of understanding what they mean is understanding that very often the weather report for any particular day means “we don’t know whether it’s going to rain that day or not.”

But IME in this area the percentage chance of rain given at 7 days out is often drastically different from the percentage given for the same day at 1 day out; and may have changed significantly two or three times in the interval.

25

You take off your clothes when you’re nauseated?

26

That is a term I learned as a Midshipman. Flashing was when someone was barfing on the good old Training Ship Golden Bear. Same as flashing over on a low pressure evaporator, when not properly operating the evaporator properly and salt water was carried over and contaminated the water coming from the evap.

27

I have seen it twice here in Oz. The first time was a really horrid gusty cross wind landing and the pilot absolutely nailed it. Bounced and slewed all the way down to a near imperceptible bump as the wheels hit.

But as taking the plane has become mostly the same as taking a bus somewhere, but with worse seats, everything becomes commonplace.

The only time I ever saw someone really ill on a plane was on a turbo-prop (F-27 given how long ago it was) and she was having panic attacks as the plane landed. But motion sickness is not something that is easy to manage. Trouble is that it isn’t necessarily the violent stuff that makes people sick, but the slower motions. I have zero trouble on a small high performance sailboat in even quite violent seas, but put me on a small powerboat rocking through the waves and it gets nasty quickly. Planes seem to be a similar problem. Regional commuter planes seem to be the worst, at least to me. Shorter journeys where it is hard to climb out over the weather may be a concomitant problem.

28

About once every 20 flights or so I get to arrange for a bio-hazard cleanup affecting a couple of seats or a whole lavatory. Some of these people can be quite sprayful. And that doesn’t include the many more folks who manage to contain their vomit neatly in the white bag with the built-in clasps; those folks I never hear about except when the flight attendants are yakking (heh!) after the flight.

Interestingly, turbulence seems to have little to do with it. Maybe it’s more a matter of excessive nerves / fear, booze, or drugs?

29

Adding that to my vocabulary, thank you very much.

30

I figured. But I’d never heard it before.

Yeah, worst air sickness I’ve ever gotten was on a flight from Presque Isle to Boston with a stop in Bangor. I’m glad we had had that stop because I was able to get my nausea under control. And I didn’t read from Bangor to Boston!

31

Many flights I’m on are uncomfortably hot. That might add to it. (never understood why, given it’s minus 50 outside)

32

Nah, it’s a matter of being prone to motion sickness.

33

The cabin is pressurized using bleed air from the compressor stage of the engines. The ambient air coming into the engines may be -50F, but after it’s been compressed, it’s actually close to +400F. It has to be cooled down before being piped into the cabin.

34

I’m someone who is fairly prone to motion sickness. I usually throw up on boats if I don’t take medication first. The only time I’ve ever been sick on a plane was on a sightseeing flight around Denali, on a light twin engined plane (a Piper Navajo). And that was a particularly bumpy ride.

I’ve never gotten sick on an airliner before, but I have felt pretty queasy during the approach on a few occasions, when there were gusty winds. I don’t recall ever feeling sick during cruise.

35

Yes, being hot is a motion sickness trigger for many people. It’s a commonplace that if we are encountering turbulence, and especially sustained turbulence w no expectation of smooth air soon, we turn the HVAC to colder than normal. Which may take a few minutes to have a large effect. People and their e-toys put out a lot of heat.

Actually, it’s easy to tell in advance whether you’ll be hot or cold on a flight.

Glance into the cockpit while boarding. If the First Officer is skinny, you’ll be hot since they’re freezing at typical room temperatures and tend to set the thermostats to the warmer end of normal. OTOH, if they’re a big person, you can assume you’ll be freezing since they’ll set the thermostats towards the cold end. Modulo of course how much you yourself are towards the large or small end of the spectrum. :wink:

As a skinny guy, I always wear long sleeved uniform shirts and when traveling in the back in civvies wear a sweater and/or windbreaker over a long-sleeved shirt and an undershirt. Because I’m skinnier and therefore colder-blooded than about 95% of our FOs. Often by 100+ lbs-worth of meat & insulation. :slight_smile:

Now you know.

Semi-humor aside, management of air temperature in the cabin is a more complicated job than it appears. Cooling capacity parked at the gate, taxiing, and in flight are three very different situations. Time of day, sunny or cloudy, and passenger load all add to the mix. As does how whether and long the airplane had sat since last used.

As others implied above, we have a nearly infinite capacity for heat, but, especially on the ground, not a large excess for cooling. When operating in hot climates, it’s common to set the thermostats to essentially full-cold-full-time in mid-descent and leave them that way until early in the climb. That ensures the cabin remains tolerable until the next takeoff. Then it becomes a matter of guesswork + trial and error to determine where to reset the knobs for a more-or-less comfortable temperature enroute. At the next stop, we repeat the process & leave a mystery as to the best setting for the next crew to decipher.

Your typical narrowbody airplane has two heating/cooling zones, roughly the front and back half of the airplane. Widebodies tend to have one per partitioned-off cabin section. RJs have one section: the whole cabin. In each section there is one cabin temperature sensor. So ~75 people are sharing that one sensor and the system is supplying air at one temperature to that whole area. Net of any unevenness of distribution.

Good luck satisfying 150 or 350 people w a setup like that.

36

I wonder if turbulence is ever the problem?

I have been on speed boats in choppy water bouncing around like crazy with no problem.

Then I went on a dinner cruise on a fairly big ship and that slooow rocking that I could not even perceive was enough to make me queasy.

I dunno…just saying the more violent bumps don’t set me off but the slow rolling does.

37

My understanding is that a major factor in motion sickness is when your brain is being forced to process inconsistent inputs: that is, when your inner ears are telling your brain that you’re in motion, but your eyes are telling your brain that you’re standing still.

I think that this becomes a bigger factor in a situation like on an airplane, or a big ship, where your vision isn’t really registering the motion (with little, or no, view of the outside), but your inner ears certainly are. Conversely, in a speedboat, assuming that you’re above decks, you probably have a good view of the exterior, and you can see the horizon, and the rest of your surroundings, “bouncing” in time with the bouncing that your inner ears are sensing.

38

My son used to complain of nausea when he accompanied us on our pontoon boat. He would also describe how he felt sick in bed after a day on the water, continuing to feel “rocking”.

Meanwhile, that same rocking sensation was a positive for me. I always sleep well after a day on the water.

39

I just thought of something. In the 1960s airplanes had just recently changed pretty drastically. In the 1930s we had unpressurized DC-3s, which cruised at around 10,000 feet, which probably was pretty bad for people who got motion sickness. By the late 1940s we had pressurized airliners with piston engines, which could cruise at more like 20,000 feet, which was probably better but still probably more likely to encounter turbulence than modern jets. Then jets came on the scene in the late 1950s, which could cruise at 30-40,000 feet, high enough to get above most turbulence.

But, those older, lower flying airliners were still a recent memory in the 1960s (and there were probably still plenty still in service). So even if you were less likely to get airsick on a 707 than a DC-3, the idea of people getting airsick probably stuck around in popular culture for a little while longer.

40

Fact.